James Nolan became Ireland's latest sub-four minute miler when he finished fourth in the Emsley Carr Mile at the Gateshead Grand Prix yesterday. Nolan moved up from his regular 800 metres distance to record a time of three minutes 56.40 seconds - the first real effort for the UCD student over the mile.

As expected, the race was won comfortably by Haile Gebrselassie of Ethiopia in 3:52.39 with Britain's Jon Mayock (3:55.70) and Russia's Andrei Zadorozhnyi (3:56.19) just sneaking in ahead of Nolan.

Susan Smith-Walsh also had one of her best races of the year when finishing third over the 400 metre hurdles behind the current world champion Nezha Bidouane of Morocco and Olympic champion Deon Hemmings of Jamaica. In the wet and windy conditions, Bidouane took victory in 55.18 seconds while Smith-Walsh was just edged out by Hemmings, 56.29 to 56.60.

Dwain Chambers continued his blistering form by running 10.05 seconds for the 100m, the fastest-ever legal run by a Briton in Britain.