The WARDLE Skyline race near Littleborough is a race within a race for the entrants who are members of the six clubs involved in the Run the Moors Grand Prix.

The event is the third in the series after the Winter Hill and Midgley Moor Fell Races were held in February and March, and to be a counter athletes are only required to run five of the 11 races which are well spread over nine months.

In fact you don’t even have to do an ‘A’ category race as there are five of the easier ‘B’ races including this one organised by Rochdale Harriers.

Wardle Village is at the end of a cul-de-sac putting it in a rural setting on the urban fringe.

The race was started 26 years ago to help maintain the scout hut, a stone building which was originally the old Victorian church hall.

The scouts still benefit today with £182 – a pound for each runner – being handed over from the proceeds along with an equal sum for the Rossendale Mountain Rescue Unit.

The race winner this year was the in-form Tim Ellis from Edgeworth, the Lancashire silver medallist at Pendle last week, taking the title with a minute in hand from over 45 veteran Chris Smale, the former Todmorden man.

Three current Tod Harriers, John Lloyd, Alistair Rhodes-Dawson and Robin Tuddenham, were sixth, seventh and eighth, but sadly for them there was no team prize.

Still Rhodes-Dawson took the over 40 award, while the first Grand Prix finisher was Astley and Tydesley’s Simon Ford in tenth.

Rossendale Harriers almost swept the board in the 2010 Grand Prix with five of the top 10 men and they have carried on where they left off.

Craig Stansfield and Thornton Taylor are the defending champions in the over 40 and over 50 classes and they were class winners again at Wardle with third and fourth in the GP and 13th and 14th outright.

John Ealing and Andrew Lee were also well to the fore. Sarah Yeomans was the first Grand Prix counter in the women’s race and won the U23 prize outright as she finished third woman behind winner Sally Newman from Calder Valley.

Jan Atkins representing Chorley Harriers who are not in the Grand Prix, was the winning over 65 veteran. n Rob Hope has begun his campaign to regain the British Fell Championship by taking sixth place at the Mourne Peaks in Northern Ireland.

The current English champion from Wheelton Village was nearly four minutes behind race winner Tom Owens from Shettleston who clocked 2:07:52 for the 12.5 miles.