AVON Valley Runners’ women’s veterans team are celebrating a third successive victory in the 2016 Vitality Bath Half Marathon.

But their success was not without some drama as initially when the official team results were published on Monday morning they found they had been beaten into top spot by Somer AC.

That came as a genuine shock to the trio of Jackie Rockliffe, Fiona Price and Diane Hier, who felt confident that they had successfully retained their title.

“We have won that team prize for the past two years so that is a little disappointing - and annoying,” said Rockliffe.

“We thought we had done enough.”

But with the organisers scrutinising results and race video, an email was received at the event HQ from Somer's Claire Blewitt in which she admitted to have given her number to another runner.

Race director Andrew Taylor immediately disqualified Blewitt and Somer’s women were scrubbed from the team results thereby pushing AVR up to their customary top spot.

“That is brilliant news.” said Rockliffe when the Gazette & Herald gave her the latest update.

“I also think it is the same three of us who have won the team title every year now.”

Rockliffe was AVR’s top finisher in the women’s race on Sunday in 34th overall and fourth in the over 45s age group. She completed the two-lap course in 1hr 25mins 50secs which was slower than her course best of 1:25.07 twelve months ago.

“I had a really good race but I feel a little disappointed with the time because I had hoped to get closer to 1hr 25mins,” added Rockliffe.

“I know I shouldn’t be disappointed but you always want to do better.”

Amazingly Rockliffe confirmed that her time on Sunday was exactly the same as she recorded in the race 20 years ago.

“Now that is weird,” she added.

Price didn’t race Bath flat-out as her spring target is the Cardiff Half Marathon a week on Sunday but nonetheless clocked a solid 1:30.02 and Hier completed the scoring trio in 1:32.36 to give her fourth in the over 50s age category. The other member of the squad was Claire Howard (93:26).

Leading AVP man was Richard Ayling in 69th with a time of 76mins 42secs followed closely by Mike Rose in 85th (77:33) and Dominic Beddis in 162nd (81:50).

The club also had several runners from its popular beginners’ groups recording personal bests.

The honour of finishing leading Wiltshire runner went to Team Bath AC’s Josh Taylor, who works as a trainee solicitor in Devizes.

The 25-year-old former Hardenhuish School student clocked a personal best of 75mins 22secs, slicing 17 seconds off the mark he set in the same race 12 months ago.

He was Team Bath’s second man home and helped them to a surprise win in the team event Veterans teams – women’s over 40s: 1 Avon Valley Runners 4:28.39; 2 Team Bath 4:41.06; 3 Bristol & West AC 4:45.27.