Romsey'S Mark Nixon collected two gold medals at the Junior European Orienteering Championships held in Epping Forest last weekend.

On Saturday, he had a near perfect run to beat a fellow Brit into siver medal position. Mark completed the 11km course in just under an hour, and was the only competitor to break the hour mark.

The British pair joined up with the fourth placed runner from the individual race to run in a very exciting relay race in which there was strong opposition from the Russian and Swiss teams.

The first lap runner finished 13th, but Mark brought the team up to third place, less than a minute behind the three leading teams. At the end of the final lap the first three teams all arrived at the last control at the same time.

However, the British runner's superior sprinting speed gave the team victory over the two Russian teams by just one second! The Swiss team came a close fourth - all this after 20.5km of hard racing.

The British team had two other silver medals, making this one of the most successful Junior European champioinships ever.

Mark is a former pupil of Romsey School and Brockenhurst College. He is now at Edinburgh University studying Sports Science.