THERE were personal bests galore for the four Bury athletes who competed in the English Athletics Combined Events Championships at Manchester’s SportCity last weekend.

Jay Cook, competing in the under-15 boys' octathlon, had a superb weekend as he finished fourth overall but was rewarded with a silver medal for finishing second Northern athlete.

During the course of the competition he set lifetime bests in the 100m (13.01secs), javelin (35.83m), 400m (1:02.06), pole vault (3.17) and 1,000m (3:19.1). He also equalled his best of 1.65 in the high jump.

It was not surprising he set a lifetime best points score of 3,701, although it was a frustrating 73 points away from third place overall.

Daisy Worthington took eighth place in the u17 women’s heptathlon. She set a new best in the high jump with a 1.56 performance and the overall quality of her performances in the other six events ensured she set a new lifetime- best points score of 4,363.

Abigail Howard and Rosella Togo competed in the u15 girls' hexathlon. Howard finished ninth overall and Togo took 25th position as both set new bests in the 75m hurdles (11.82 and 12.03), the long jump (4.63 and 4.39) and the 800m (2:39.05 and 2:41.16).

They both also set new best points score totals of 2,945 and 2,489 respectively.

Matt Cullen, who coaches all four youngsters, was delighted with the quality of their performances and their attitude to competition.

A small number of Bury athletes used Saturday’s Heaton parkrun to keep ticking over.

Ben Coop won the race in a canter with 16:22 and Sarah Thomas and Katie Geelan finished first and fourth female athletes in 20.37 and 21.01 respectively. The other Bury athletes in the top 100 in the huge field included Patrick Babb (21:31), Steve Tobias (21:50) and Matthew Garside (22:12).

Unfortunately, the Cheshire Track and Field meeting that Bury were due to host on Sunday was cancelled due to an insufficient number of qualified officials being available.

Athletics relies heavily on volunteer officials and if readers are interested in qualifying as an official they can contact the club through their website at

www.buryac.co.uk.