Hercules Wimbledon followed up their best ever performance in the England road relay championship with a solid start to their winter cross-country programme in the opening 2XU Surrey Men's League Division One match at Farthing Downs on Saturday.

Despite missing some of their top runners, the team finished a fourth out of nine. 

There was a fierce battle between Jonathan Cornish and Fred Slemeck for the honour of leading the team home in the five-mile senior men's race.

While Cornish had a sizeable lead at the end of the first of the two laps, Slemeck gradually pulled him back and in a sprint finish for the line just managed to sneak home.

Slemeck was 15th and Cornish 16th of the 176 finishers with both runners clocking the same time of 29 minutes 56 seconds.

Two places behind in 30:13 was league debutant Dimos Evangelidis, before veteran Kieran White crossed the line 28th in 30:43.

Justin Kelly, on holiday in the UK from his home in Australia, was next to finish (35th, 31:08) with Joe Clark (38th, 31:21) next.

There was a gap before Rob Tuer (53rd, 32:04) and Alexie Calvert-Ansari (59th, 32:32) crossed the line.

Chris Ore (74th, 33:07) and veteran Stuart Fraser (91st, 34:01) completed the scoring team of 10 runners.

Meanwhile, Claire Grima led the Hercules Wimbledon team to 10th spot in the opening Surrey Ladies League Division One match in Richmond Park.

She finished ninth out of more than 200 runners in 26:02, with over-45 veteran Lisa Thomas 37th in 27:52 and Lisa Laws 41st in 27:58.

Over-40 veteran Gina Galbraith was 52nd in 28:46, with fellow veteran Francesca Clarke 79th in 29:42. 

Elsewhere, Matt Gibbons was best of the young athletes at Farthing Downs finishing fifth out of 34 runners in the U17 2.5-mile race in 15:32.

Zac Purnell was Hercules Wimbledon's top U15 runner taking seventh place in 16:30, with Peter Riches (10th, 17:17), Sam Barker (12th, 17:35), Cosmo Craven (14th, 17:51) and Lois Freire (19th, 18:46) helping the team to fourth.

Daniel Illlis finished seventh out of 43 runners in the U13 2.5-mile race in 17:51, with Alex Abrahams 20th in 19:00.

Hercules Wimbledon's over-50 veteran Charles Hampden-Smith was also among the 16 runners from the club in the senior men's race finishing 143rd.

However, it was his second race of the day as, just a few hours earlier, he ran in the Wimbledon Common 5km parkrun where he was top over-50 finisher in 19:56.