SCOTTISH hill runner Scout Adkin has claimed the Mountain Running World Cup title by a single point.

A thrilling weekend in Chiavenna, Italy, saw the 31-year-old from Peebles win on Saturday and then take third place on Sunday.

Scout topped the charts overall after 12 races across a number of months in seven countries – America, Austria, Portugal, France, Italy, Switzerland and Slovenia.

"I’m so happy to win this," Adkin, who came through the ranks at Moorfoot Runners, told Scottish Athletics.

"It has been a long season with many ups and downs – both literally in the races and figuratively.

"Wining a World Cup title makes all the travel, the training, and tough racing worthwhile and I want to thank everyone who has helped me along the way.

"Going into the last two races the points for the podium were so tight that anything could have happened. I knew I needed two really good performances to have any chance." 

Scout finished on 339 points. She pipped second-placed Joyce Muthoni Njeru, who was on 338 points, to the title. The Kenyan had won the previous three World Cups.

A win and then third place at the finals, plus five bonus points adding for participating in the finals, added to the Borderer's tally.

Njeru finished fifth on Saturday before then winning the race on Sunday.

Adkin added: "It's been a tough year with a lot of racing and it certainly went down to the wire.

"It is quite a long season with a variety of races from very short 3km and 1,000 metres of climb all the way through to 32km and just over 2,000 metres of climb.

"It's certainly been testing in speed, endurance and power as well, never mind racing in quite a lot of heat over the summer.

"I had to do a lot of travel this year between flying to and from Europe and working in between. I'm just so glad it's paid off."