56 under 15 minutes at Armagh Road Races

The Armagh International Road Races, that took place earlier this evening, out-did last year's record-breaking results with 56 men running under 15 minutes in the 5k event.

The race was won by Joe Stilin of the USA after a close battle with Daniel Cliffe (handicap -4.3) who finished 2nd and Olympic triathlete, Jonny Brownlee (handicap 0.0) (pictured) who finished 3rd after leading the race for much of the second half.

The 5k race, that took the runners on five laps around the Mall in the city centre, saw the front pack tightly bunched for much of the race with Dan Studley (handicap -2.5), John Beattie (handicap -4.9) and Polish steeplechaser, Krystian Zalewski taking turns to set the sub-14 pace from early on and with Jonny Brownlee pushing it on from around half way but, as the runners came onto the final straight, the spectators that lined the route to the finish were treated to a sprint finish spectacle from Stilin, Cliffe and Brownlee. Their finishing times were 13:58, 13:59 and 14:00 respectively.

Brownlee, who starts his triathlon season in two weeks, commented that he was looking for a short, fast race to test his fitness and, although he was somewhat disappointed to be out-kicked at the end, was very pleased to have had this quality of race as he prepares for the year ahead.

Top junior, in this event, was Jac Hopkins (handicap -3.0) who ran a superb 14:34, and broke the 10 year-old record for a junior by 11 seconds,

The women's 3k event was won by England's Racheal Bamford (handicap 0.0) ahead of Ireland's Teresa Doherty and England's Gemma Hillier (handicap 0.2), Katrina Wootton (handicap 1.5) was 4th and Rachel Felton (handicap 0.7) finished 5th.The top five women all broke 9:30 with times of 9:16, 9:22, 9:23, 9:25 and 9:27 respectively.