JAY Cook produced Bury’s performance of the week in the English Schools’ North West Combined Events Championships at Crewe.

He was one of five Bury athletes who had been selected to represent Greater Manchester in the competition and took a fine silver medal in the junior boys' pentathlon competition, setting a new personal best of 2,479 points and in the process setting new lifetime bests in the high jump, long jump, shot, javelin and 800m.

To underline the range of his ability, he has also been selected by the county to represent them at the pole vault in the prestigious English Schools' Track and Field Championships in Birmingham in mid-July.

This makes it a unique double for a Bury family as his older sister, Christie, also represented Greater Manchester in the competition over 800m in 2011.

Natan Witkowski was also competing in the junior boys' pentathlon, taking fifth place in a PB score of 2,241.

His highlights included new bests in the high jump, javelin and 800m.

In the junior girls' pentathlon, Abigail Howard took a strong ninth place with a new best score of 2,348, setting a new PB in the 75m hurdles.

Daisy Worthington missed out on a bronze medal in the intermediate girls' heptathlon by a frustrating four points, however her fourth place did come with a new best score of 4,348 and that included new best performances in the shot and 200m.

Hattie Vaughan is better known as a pole vaulter but she has been trying multi-eventing and it was a marvellous performance that saw her finish fourth in the senior girls' pentathlon as a relative newcomer to the competition.

She scored a total of 3,230 points and set new bests in the shot, 100m hurdles and 200m.

Earlier in the week, Bury had three athletes competing in the Manchester Mile races at SportCity.

Byron Edwards relished the opportunity, setting a new best of 4mins 48.2secs to finish as first V45, while Giles Bennett covered the mile in 5:18.79 to finish as third V50. Coach Alison Dale ran a solid 6:39.43.

Edwards was in action again on Saturday, winning the 10th anniversary Heaton parkrun in 17:34 and he was delighted to be awarded the ‘Our Inspiration’ trophy dedicated to local athletics legend and former Bury AC member Jim Smith.

Bury’s under-15s and u13s competed in the third Youth Development League (Lower) fixture at Ashton-under-line on Saturday and the depleted team lost some ground against their league rivals, finishing in joint fourth place out of the eight teams.

For the u15 girls, there were individual victories for Connie Potts (B 800m and B hammer), Freya Potts (A 1500m), Reilly Carson (B 1500m), Abigail Howard (A 75m hurdles), Jena Dickinson (A long jump and A shot), Scarlett Dewar (B shot and B discus) and Millie Uprichard (A hammer).

Jena, Reilly and Freya teamed up with Grace Gibson to win the 4x300m relay.

Peter Gardner and Finley Collings were winners in the u13 boys' A and B high jump, while Nyah Coates won the A 800m for the u13 girls in 2:34.5,

giving her the AAA Grade Three standard, and Isabel Lawson won the B javelin.