Cameron Brooks made a good start to the defence of his Sweatshop York and District 10k series title with a comfortable win at Pocklington in the first of five fixtures.

Pulling away from the field from the early stage Brooks was never seriously challenged, winning by nearly a minute in 33min 13 sec.

Neil Strange and Andy Bissell used their experience to make it a Knavesmire clean sweep of the first three places.

They were not even in the chasing pack at 3k but went fast on the gradual descent and sped ahead. Strange pulled away from Bissell in the last few hundred metres.

This set Knavesmire on their way to a long awaited team win in the team race.

An out of sorts Paul Goble was York Acorn's first finisher, in fourth place.

Tom Danby, in fifth place was the first runner from the host club to finish.

Selby veteran Nigel Holden

came through well to finish sixth.

Helen Wilcox, from Pocklington, won the women's race in 39min 17sec, well ahead of Lara Gibbs (York Acorn), eighth in the English Schools' championship, who broke 40 minutes for the first time and beat her mother Dawn into third place.

The second race in the series is at Tadcaster.

Updated: 10:09 Monday, May 17, 2004