Bishop Auckland's Gary Wearmouth made it three out of three when he won the latest round of the North East cyclo-cross league, staged by Teesdale CRC on the Hetton Lyons course.

While it was a much closer race than the Cleveland Wheelers event at Guisborough, Wearmouth still beat the same rivals, although second and third places were reversed from the first two rounds.

Alan Nixon, of Cleveland Wheelers, was second, 11 seconds down on Wearmouth at the end of the eight-lap, 14-mile race.

Matt Kipling, riding for the Science in Sport.com team, was a further five seconds off the pace, with James Anderson (Ferryhill Wheelers) leading home the rest of the 51-strong field, more than two minutes back.

Wearmouth, Nixon and Kipling had gone ahead together virtually from the gun, and by the end of the fourth lap the gap was already 2min 15sec.

The turning point came on the fifth lap. After a series of lap times of just over seven minutes, Wearmouth put in an attack, taking just 6-53 for the lap, and only Kipling could stay with him.

But Wearmouth and Kipling were unable to sustain their pace and Nixon managed to close back up to them. Then, as Wearmouth made his decisive winning move on the final circuit, it was Kipling who lost contact first as Nixon made a brave effort to hang on.

Barry Kipling, father of Matthew, crossed the line in ninth place overall to take the veterans' award.

James Hall (Caygill Frames RT) was the leading under-18 junior, and Lisa Anderson (Ferryhill Wheelers) took the women's award, both repeating their performances at Guisborough.

Cestria CC's Darren Tiffen finished 46 seconds clear to win the separate youth category race over four laps.

Peter Stevenson, the former national veterans' champion from Northallerton, who is based on Belgium, made a winning return in Bradford Olympic RC's cyclo-cross on a course at Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire.

Jim Henderson collected his fifth national hill climb title in six years as he confirmed his liking for short, steep courses at Luddenden, near Halifax.

The Southport CC rider from Formby, Merseyside, did not even get in the medals on the six-mile Cat and Fiddle course last year, but on the 1,777-yard climb of Halifax Lane, which rises at gradients of up to one-in-five, he left defending champion Mark Lovatt trailing by a huge margin of 19 seconds.

Henderson, riding a lightweight cycle weighing little more than 12 pounds, and riding a single fixed gear, powered his way up the climb in 5min 19.2sec to take 24 seconds off the hill record set by Blackburn's Ian Stott a year ago.

Stott, last year's championship bronze medallist, could manage only fifth place this time.