Three important county championships take place next month.

The Norfolk Cross Country Championships will be held at the Charles Burrell Centre on Sunday, January 7 and already the senior women's race should be a great one. Commonwealth Games competitor Iona Lake is entered as well as international runner Ruth Senior and Danni Nimmock. At stake are places in the Inter Counties Championships later in the season.

Norfolk has developed a great level of success in Sportshall athletics, with several Norfolk teams having become national champions. The Norfolk Sportshall Championships will be held at Sportspark in Norwich on Saturday, January 13. The event is open to both club and school athletes.

The Norfolk Indoor Championships will be held in conjunction with the Keith Ward meeting at Lynnsport, Kings Lynn on Sunday, January 28.

All of the county championships can be entered online at the Athletics Norfolk website.

Norfolk's young athletes took on the best of the Southern Counties cross country runners at Oxford.

The best individual performance came from Abi Durrand who was seventh in the under 15 girls' event. Backed by Grace Jermy 25th and Maddie Short 29th she led Norfolk to fourth overall. The under 13 girls finished sixth with Hattie Reynolds first Norfolk athlete home in 15th place.

The under 17 boys finished seventh with Jack White 22nd and Will Mahoney 23rd. The under 13 boys were in 15th place in the highly competitive team competition.