NEW MARSKE Harrier Ricky Stevenson ran the race of his life to beat some of Great Britain’s top middle-distance runners in the Great Edinburgh Cross Country International.

The 21-year-old Teesside University student thrilled a huge television audience as he staged a superb sprint finish in the 4.2K race on a snowcovered Holyrood Park course.

He surged past Northern champion Steve Vernon and also claimed the scalps of prerace favourite Mo Farah, the European indoor 3,000m champion, and top miler Andy Baddely, who was trying for a hat-trick of victories in the event.

Now Stevenson looks set for an eye-catching year and could well follow in the footsteps of the last North-East winner of the prestigious Edinburgh event, Morpeth Harrier Nick McCormick, who went on to win the AAA 1500m title and represented England in the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

A delighted Stevenson said: “This is a massive confidence booster for me.

“Last year in races like this I wasn’t competitive enough.

Now I am challenging to win.

“You stand on the line against some of the world’s best athletes and as a youngster I have just got to try to get on to their coat-tails and hang on. It is great to have such role models.

“It was my day today. I took the opportunity well and I won quite convincingly over the last 200 metres.”

Farah, who looked a certain winner as he went into an early lead, faded badly and trooped home dejectedly in third place.

The men’s 9K race came up with a shock as pre-race favourite Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia’s double Olympic and four-times world 10,000m champion, suffered only his second cross country defeat as he was beaten into fourth place by Kenyan trio Joseph Ebuya, Titus Mbishei and Eliud Kipchoge.

But there was no surprises in the women’s 5.8K race, won comfortably by Ethiopia’s Beijing Olympics 5,000m and 10,000m champion Tirunesh Dibaba, who beat Kenyan Vivian Cheruiyot, the world 5000m champion. Great Britain’s newly-crowned European cross country champion Hayley Yelling was fourth, while Chester-le-Street’s Scottish 4K champion Freya Murray, after battling in second place in the early stages of the race, finished eighth.

Selected results - Men (9K): 1 J Ebuya (Kenya) 28.41; 2 T Mbishei (Ken) 28.43; 3 E Kipchoge (Ken) 29.04; 4 K Bekele (Ethiopia) 29.17; 9 R McLeod (Great Britain) 30.19.

Men (4.2K): 1 R Stevenson (Great Britain) 13.20; 2 S Vernon (GB) 13.23; 3 M Farah (GB) 13.28.

Women (5.8K): 1 T Dibaba (Eth) 21.37; 2 V Cheruiyot (Ken) 21.47; 3 K Gezahegn (Eth) 21.48; 4 H Yelling-Higham (GB) 21.51; 5 S Twell (GB) 21.51; 8 F Murray (GB) 22.19.