A LEGENDARY fell runner and former world champion is to be president of the junior world mountain running championships in the Lake District this summer.

Kenny Stuart was the dominant figure in British fell running in the 1980s becoming the first athlete to win the coveted British Fell Running Championship three times and the first British champion to win a World Mountain Running Trophy title, in Italy in 1985.

He will be president of the local organising committee in Ambleside where the junior international races will be staged in June, and will award the prizes.

Also a successful road runner who set a personal best of 2.11.36 when finishing second in the 1989 Houston Marathon, Kenny, from Threlkeld near Keswick, was acknowledged as the ‘king of the mountains’.

The junior world cup will be staged later this summer in Ambleside on June 20, with young athletes entering from more than 20 different countries.