DARWEN-BASED Royal Marine Brian Cole has qualified for next year 's World Championships after finishing second in the Winchoten 100 km race in the Netherlands.

Cole clocked seven hours, ten minutes and eight seconds over ten laps of ten km to average an astonishing 43 minutes for every circuit.

With winner Andrzej Magier of Poland, who won the race in 6:58:32, being an over-40 veteran it meant that 31-year-old Cole won his class and with it a cash prize of £500.

His success makes amends for the only blip in his new career in ultra-distance running since he took up the sport in the spring. In his only previous attempt at the100km distance, running for England in the Home International Celtic Trophy in Edinburgh, he retired while in second place with severe dehydration.

His time is well inside the 7:25 required to make the Great Britain World Championship team, but still just short of the seven hours needed for individual selection.

Cole hopes to compete in the championship next year when they will be held at the same Winchoten venue.

He feels that this November 's Championships have come too soon and his priority is next month's Washington Marathon, where he is a regular competitor, as Britain's Marines take on their American counterparts.

As a warm-up he ran in last Sunday's Great North Run and just a week after his Dutch success he 'jogged in' with the last of the five strong Marines squad in around 75 minutes.