YORK-BASED Eborienteers Matt Speake and Jenny Whitehead won the premier race in the British Orienteering calendar by convincing margins.

The British Elite Classic race was held at High Dam, west of Lake Windermere.

The Women's British Elite classic race saw a strong field despite the fact that World no.9 Heather Monro decided not to fly over from her home in Norway to compete.

Whitehead, 24, led the women's race from start to finish taking the title by over three minutes from British team-mate Kim Buckley.

Sarah Rollins, 25, running for the British Army took the bronze medal, eight minutes down on Whitehead.

The York runner said: "This is my first senior British win and I'm delighted."

The previous day Rollins added to her British Sprint and Night Race Championship victories by winning the British Elite Short Race by 19 seconds from Whitehead at Haverthwaite, near Newby Bridge.

The Men's Elite Short Race was won by Oli Johnson (South Yorkshire) the York City Trophy champion. Ed Nash (Lakeland) took the Classic title on Sunday.

Speake lost his Junior Elite Short Race title, finishing second to fellow Junior World Championships team member David Hodkinson. But he bounced back to win the Junior Classic by over four minutes despite making a five-minute mistake at the seventh control.

The victories of Speake and Whitehead also gave them Northern Champion titles.

Eborienteers have recruited Finnish runner Vesa-Matti Routsi, who is currently working in Scarborough. Routsi won the M21L Twin Peaks event, held in parallel to the British Elite Championships, by 16 minutes.

Ebor will be competing in the Harvester Relay at weekend in Derbyshire.

The club are hoping to follow up to last year's victory in the 'B' class and will this year enter a team in the 'A' Class with Routsi bringing the team home on the last leg.

Updated: 09:10 Wednesday, June 11, 2003