May also be getting pic from Ian Hodgson relays

KIRKBY Stephen's Sarah Tunstall claimed victory at the International Smarna Gora Race to secure the overall Mountain Running World Cup women's title.

Sarah, who runs for Kendal AC, started the day in second place in the World Cup standings and just 30 points adrift of leader Timea Merenyi; but with the Hungarian not competing in Slovenia, Tunstall took full advantage.

Alice Gaggi started fast while Sarah 'relaxed' into the race and by the first checkpoint had a 44-second lead over the Italian but that was cut to 30 seconds on the descent.

"I was conscious of Alicia being a brilliant climber so I took the technical descent quite controlled so that I could really work on the final three kilometre climb to the finish," said Sarah, 29. "I was surprised that at the end the gap had extended to one minute over Alicia."

Sarah clocked 52-59 with Gaggi crossing the line in 54-03 and Poland’s Dominika Wisniewska-Ulfik finishing third in 54-27.

The win capped what has been a brilliant season for Sarah who was a 'disappointed' fourth in the World Mountain Running Championships at Betws-y-Coed in North Wales recently.

"I was delighted to win at the weekend," said Sarah. "It was a fantastic end to an unbelievable summer season. I really like the Smarna Gora course and this was the fourth time I have run there.

"The course is all on forest tracks which I love but it is quite confusing in terms of criss-crossing in and out of paths to create an up, down, up course.

"I would never have thought in April that I would win two World Cup races and with Saturday's result I secured the win of the overall series, which takes the best four results of six races during the summer."

Other ladies celebrating at the weekend was the all-conquering Ambleside women who were first female team in the Ian Hodgson Mountain Marathon from Patterdale on Sunday.

The mountain marathon is run in pairs over four legs and the winning Ambleside team was made up of Michelle Foxwell and Steph Jones; Sarah McCormack and Annie Conway; Lou Roberts and Astrid Gibbs and Jane Reedy and Hazel Robinson. They finished 25th team out of 70 in a time of 4-26-28.

Ambleside ladies won the British and English fell running team titles earlier in the year.

Borrowdale were the first team in 3-34-53 with early pace-setters Keswick (3-36-06) in second and Calder Valley (3-37-11) in third. The best placed South Lakeland team was Helm Hill (3-42-57) while Ambleside's men's team was ninth in 3-55-51. Ambleside (4-00-42) also had the second vets team.