It is easy to be seduced by the hype and glory of sport, but a frost-coated Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh provided the dramatic backdrop to a story of resilience and raw courage. Stephanie Twell may have served further notice of her lip-smacking potential, but the mere presence of Linet Masai after a fortnight of death, violence and turmoil was heart-warming.

The women’s six-kilometre cross-country race at the BUPA Great Edinburgh International on Saturday provided a passport to the future as Twell, the 18-year-old from Aldershot, Hampshire, who is inviting unenviable comparisons with Paula Radcliffe, took on a world-class African field and finished an impressive fourth.

Masai, the same age as Twell and the world junior cross-country champion, was second to Gelete Burka, of Ethiopia, with Vivian Cheruiyot, the world 5,000 metres runner-up from Kenya, third. That may sound a routine result in terms of long-distance running, but Masai had to overcome the fear of car-jacking, gunshots and an imploding homeland to get to Scotland in the first place. “It’s been terrible and I have not been able to train because everyone is scared to go out,” the Kenyan said.

She tried to leave last week for a race in Belfast, queueing through the night at Eldoret airport in western Kenya before being turned away, but she finally arrived in London last Monday. Mentally and physically drained, Masai spent four days without training as she tried to come to terms with the political and ethnic violence which has followed last month’s election and has claimed around 600 lives so far.

Nevertheless, Masai’s condition should not detract from the best performance of Twell’s fledgeling career. “I’m ecstatic,” she said after keeping pace with the leaders for most of the race and then almost catching Cheruiyot in a sprint finish. They were both given the same time of 20min 34sec, half a minute behind Burka.

“I had a disappointing run in Belfast and was so determined to make up for it,” Twell said. “Just being in the same race as these people was a challenge, but I wanted to take it on and see what I could do. It gives me huge confidence. This is the path I have chosen and I will make any sacrifice.”

Twell, who beat notable fellow Britons in Liz and Hayley Yelling, has a fire within that suggests that the Radcliffe analogies are justified. Radcliffe finished second in this event when she was 19 and Twell has detailed plans of how she plans to progress through the distances until she, too, is a marathon runner, at the 2020 Olympic Games.

In the main event, the men’s 9.3 kilometre race, Kenenisa Bekele, Ethiopia’s Olympic and world champion at 10,000 metres, ran a perfectly judged race to secure a hat-trick of Edinburgh victories and go some way to avenging his defeat by Zersenay Tadese, of Eritrea, in last year’s World Cross-Country Championships. Bekele’s run, timed at 27min 42sec, means that his only loss in 29 cross-country races remains that humbling by Tadese last year. He has not yet decided, however, whether he will return to Edinburgh for the World Cross-Country Championships in March.

Andy Baddeley’s good winter continued as he won the 4.4kilometre race in 12min 52sec, using his track speed to overhaul Andy Vernon in the last few yards. “It was absolutely freezing and I was suffering a bit with my breathing, but it gives me a lot of belief,” the Great Britain 1,500 metres runner said.

The man Baddeley has overhauled in the British rankings on the track fared less well. Mike East was the only British man to reach a track final at the Athens Olympics in 2004, coming sixth in the 1,500 metres, but he has since had two knee operations and lost his lottery funding. He was a lowly 27th on Saturday, but is adamant that he is in much better shape and will aim to prove a point to UK Athletics during the indoor season.