ALDERSHOT, Farnham & District athlete Stephanie Twell won her third consecutive title at the SPAR European Cross-Country Championships, while the rest of the British team filled the top six places in the junior women's race in Brussels on Sunday. 

Leading the charge behind the victor was club-mate Charlotte Purdue and another AFD runner, Emma Pallant, was fifth. 

The club also provided the first two athletes in the Great Britain team which won the under-23 men's title in Belgium, with Andy Vernon coming second and Ben Lindsay fourth.

Twell had a tactically perfect outing in her last race in the junior ranks, resisting being distracted by the audacious early pace by a variety of runners, and then taking the lead almost exactly at the halfway point before pulling away from team-mates and other rivals.

Purdue gamely gave chase for the next kilometre, but the World junior 1,500m champion was out on her own in the final stages of the race before crossing the line after 4,000 metres of running in 13mins 28secs.

Purdue held her nerve as she watched her regular training partner edge away – both women are coached by Mick Woods – to finish 11 seconds behind and add the silver medal to the bronze she won 12 months ago in Toro. At 17, she looks like the heir apparent to Twell as the junior champion as she still has two more years of eligibility in the age group.

It was a phenomenal race for the British junior women.

Lauren Howarth, also 18, took the bronze medal as Britain achieved the first ever clean sweep of medals in these championships.

In fact, it was a clean sweep of the first six places as the British women fulfilled all pre-race expectations and were convincing winners of the team title for the fourth successive year.

"I'm not sure whether this title is better than my first one two years ago, but I can't imagine anything better at the moment. I'm so happy," said the delighted Twell.

"I've got to pay tribute to my training partners, Charlie and Emma. We've worked really hard for this. I think we thought that taking all the medals was possible, perhaps with all the team getting in the top ten," added the 19-year-old student.

"I never expected the race to go off so hard and especially as it was straight up a hill, but other than that I ran my own race. There was no pre-race team plan, but we did talk about what length spikes we were going to wear and many of us changed in the morning."

Andy Vernon passed Turkey's Selim Bayrak, the Ethiopian-born Olympic 10,000 metres finalist, on the last lap of their race, but finished eight seconds behind Andrea Lalli of Italy.

Lalli, France's Mourad Amdouni, Bayrak and three British runners – Vernon, Lindsay and Keith Gerrard – were the only runners brave enough to chase Yeshetela Bekele of the host country who set the pace in the 8000m race.

However, Bekele pulled up injured at the halfway point and Lalli and Bayrak established a gap of 50m over the chasers, before the Italian surged again.

Vernon, last year's bronze medallist, assessed the situation in front of him and the AFD runner started to close down on the suffering Bayrak in the final 1,500 metres.

Lalli continued to push hard, well aware that Vernon was running strongly, and powered to the gold medal in 24mins 56.

Vernon came home eight seconds behind to secure his third individual medal at the championships.

With Ben Lindsey a fine fourth and four men in the top seven, Great Britain took their third team title of the afternoon.