COMMONWEALTH Games star Sharon Tonks finished a hectic spell with fourth place in the UK Athletics third Royal Leamington Spa Grand Prix.

And the performance was enough to earn the Redditch racewalker an invite to the Race Walking World Cup in Turin next month.

After a subdued performance in the National 10km Championships two weeks ago, Bromsgrove & Redditch AC favourite Tonks was hoping for a far more aggressive race at Leamington.

With Norwegian Olympic silver medallist and multi-world record holder Kjersti Tysse Platzer on the start line, nobody would get a prize for guessing who would win.

Right from the gun Platzer took off like a rocket.

For the first two laps Sharon traded steps at a very fast pace with South Africa's Estle Viljoen, then on the third lap Estle had a 10-second lead on Sharon who was obviously in trouble.

On the sixth lap she was caught and passed by the Mexican-born Irish athlete Ivonne Gassin.

Gassin passed Viljoen to take second place on the eighth lap.

After that the positions remained to the finish: Platze first; Gassin second; Viljoen third and Tonks fourth (first UK athlete).

Although two minutes faster than her last race Tonks was disappointed with her time of 50min 28sec.

She said afterwards she was simply drained.

The day proved a great success, particularly for foreign athletes.

Both male and female junior races were won by athletes from the Czech Republic.

The men's 10km saw Spaniard Alejandro Cambil take an outstanding win with Kjersti Platzer totally dominating the women's 10km.