Two of Bury AC’s talented combined events specialists competed at the English Athletics Combined Events Indoor Championships for Under-17s and U15s at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield over the weekend and did well.

On the Saturday, Jemima Miles competed in the U17 women’s pentathlon and set a new personal best points tally of 2,725 to take 19th place. In the first event, the 60m hurdles, Jemima recorded a season’s best of 9.13secs, then, in the high jump, she set a new PB of 1.44 and followed that with a season’s best putt of 10.01 in the shot. She set a further PB in the long jump with 4.56, adding a massive 20cm to her previous best. In the final event, the 800m, the hard work of the day caught up with her and she completed the event in 3mins 3.72secs - some way outside her PB but still a season’s best.

The following day, Oliver Cooper competed in the U15 boys’ pentathlon and set an excellent PB of 9.42 in the first event, the 60m hurdles. He then set another PB of 5.16 in the long jump and blasted the shot out to new best of 10.95 - his first time over 10 metres for the event. His next event was the high jump, where he set yet another PB of 1.59. Finally, it was the 800m where he set another new best of 2:36.71. His total point score was 2,316, more than 350 points higher than his previous best, and good enough to secure him an excellent eighth place overall, much to the delight of his coach, Matt Cullen.

The previous day, there was a double first for Bury athletes at the Heaton Parkrun.

Overall winner in 17:04 was Martin Clark, while Sinead Taylor took the first woman’s place with 18:56, with Jenny Badger second, in 19:29, and Nicola Ryan third, in 19:50.

Sarah Flett kept it a Bury AC clean sheet with her fourth place in 20:37, followed by Sarah Thomas, in fifth with 21:31.