HARRIET Knowles-Jones says her latest victory, her first on the international stage, will stay with her as “a great memory."

The Warrington Athletics Club runner was triumphant in the junior women’s race at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country International on Saturday.

She completed the 4km course in the Scottish capital in a time of 13mins 56secs to go one better than the silver medal she won at the 2016 event.

The 18-year-old says there were a number of factors that made winning this race special.

“I’d never won an international race before so I’ll always remember this one for that reason,” she said.

“The European Cross Country Championships in Italy will be a tough one to beat but having most of my family here for Edinburgh makes this one a great memory for me.

“I knew a couple of the girls who were rivals last year were too old to race this year so I thought I was in with a chance but I’m really happy with how it all went.”

With mother Jayne, a former UK 1,500m champion, watching on, Knowles-Jones finished ten seconds clear of Jasmijn Lau of the Netherlands, with the USA’s Nevada Mareno in third.

She believes the hilly section of the course is where the race was run.

“It’s probably the best Edinburgh course I can remember,” she added.

“It’s normally cold and wet ,but it was dry this year which is always nice.

“I had a race plan and stuck to it. The first lap was quite steady but I made my move on the hills as I thought that was where I could pick up time.

“The Americans dropped off a little bit in the hills so I just took that and ran with it.

“I knew I’d worked hard at the end of the race but I felt quite comfortable with how I paced it on the whole.”

Knowles-Jones was able to carry on the superb form she showed at the end of 2016 when she helped Great Britain under 20s to a team gold medal at the European Cross Country Championships in Sardinia in December.

Before that she had climbed to second in the UK under 20s rankings over 1,500m on the track, thanks largely to knocking almost three seconds off her personal best time at the World Junior Championships in Poland by finishing eighth in a time of 4mins 15.49secs.

She aims to compete at July’s European Junior Athletics Championships in Grosseto, Italy, her final one as a junior, but her next target is much closer to home.

That will be success at this year’s Northern Cross Country Championships, which will be held at Knowsley Safari Park on Saturday, January 28.