BURY Athletics Club were well represented at the Northern Cross Country Championships with a total of 17 junior and senior runners heading over to Bedale, North Yorkshire.

For the first time in recent club history Bury fielded a full team in the senior men’s race who combined to finished inside the top 20.

Ben Coop led the way with an excellent 72nd place in 47 minutes 13 seconds with teammate Josh Birmingham hot on his heels - just four places and six seconds behind.

New member Andrew Mellor was 164th (51.02), one place ahead of Jon Evans (51.04).

The rest of the team was made up of Patrick Babb (242nd, 53.55), Ben Thompson (358th, 58.10) - on his first outing for the club - Anthony Hallahan (418th place, 1:00.55) and Richard Anderson (514th place, 1:07.07) as Bury secured an excellent 17th place out of the 39 teams.

In the boys under 13s, Samuel Howard ran strongly to take 89th position (10.52), with Adam Warren in 134th (11.20) and Thomas Donnelly in 153rd (11.41). In the girls race, Emily Purdy ran a stormer to take 51st (11.10) supported by Lucy Hill (133rd, 12.05) and Lola Potts (147th, 12.15).

Freya Potts was Bury’s sole competitor in the under 15 girls race and was 25th in 15.54. In the boys race, Sam Smyth was 137th in 16.24 while Charlotte Speakman-Farnworth finished 77th in the under 17 women’s race in 21.15.

The previous weekend Bury youngsters took part in the South East Lancs Cross Country League at Heaton Park.

Star performers were the under 13 girls where Freya Potts was second as Bury took the team prize with Reilly Carson finishing sixth and Grace Gibson in 10th. Lucy Dent, eighth, displayed her clear potential in taking an excellent third in the under 11s race. Tia Buckley was 22nd.

In the boys race, Bury were third thanks to the efforts of Edison Marsden (ninth), Zac Buckley (27th) and Oliver Harrison (35th).

n Bury athletes competed in the Sale Indoor meeting at Sportcity where Jay Cook was the star of the show.

The talented multi-eventer was third in the hurdles in 9.47, fourth in the long jump with 5.32m and won the shot put with a throw of 11.18m - all new lifetime best performances.

Rosella Togo got better as the day wore on in the under 17s age group - finishing sixth in the 60m sprint in a new personal best of 8.21, fourth in the 200m in a season’s best 27.00 before taking third place in 60m hurdles with a personal best of 9.80.

In the same age group, Rashaun Currie took fifth in 60m sprint in a lifetime best of 7.37.

Akshay Mahlotra, in his first senior men’s race, set a new best of 7.71 in the 60m sprint.

Daisy Worthington enjoyed two third places, clocking season bests in both - 60m (8.36) and 600m (1.47.18). And David Vaughan also set a season’s best of 26.79 to take third in his under 17s 200m and then a personal best of 1.32.92 to take third in the 600m.