ATHLETICS: Vincent McKenna and Jessica Craig come good at Les Jones Memorial 10K event

Vincent McKenna and Jessica Craig took the major honours at the 27th Les Jones Memorial 10k race at the Mary Peters track.
Jessica CraigJessica Craig
Jessica Craig

The event sponsored by ChampionChip Ireland was part of the Novosco 10k Grand Prix and attracted just short of 400 competitors.

McKenna was already in front as they finished the initial lap of the track.

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The Queen’s athlete had a 30 second advantage on the towpath and came back to win by 45 seconds from the impressive Mark Smith with James Smyth and Richard Craig next.

Jessica Craig had only eight men ahead of her as she gave a classy exhibition.

She was on her own from the first mile and the North Down girl had a minute and a half in hand over Sinead Murtagh at the line. Melissa Eccles and Sarah Lavery followed.

Meanwhile Emma Mitchell ran a Euro standard 32:55 at the Highgate night of 10,000m bests.

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There were good performances by local athletes with Scott Rankin clocking 31:02, Mark Long 32:00, Patrick McNiff 32:18, Eoghan Totten 33:46, Fionnuala Ross 33:49 and Ann-Marie McGlynn 33:53.

Meanwhile Britain’s Olympic and world 10,000m champion Mo Farah said he felt “tired” after his first victory in the 10km Great Manchester Run.

Farah, who finished third at the London Marathon last month, raced past Ugandan Moses Kipsiro with 100 metres left to win in 28 minutes 27 seconds.

Abel Kirui of Kenya finished third, 25 seconds behind Farah.

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Ethiopian Tirunesh Dibaba won her third straight women’s race, well ahead of Kenya’s Joyciline Jepkosgei.

Farah said: “I’ve got great speed and I know that at the end of the races I can use it if the guys haven’t hurt me enough, so today was a matter of hanging in there,” he told BBC Sport.

“I was pretty tired so today was hard work.”

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