BURY Athletic Club’s Alison Dale has won the England Athletics North West Coach of the Year award.

It is the first time a Bury coach has been presented with this prestigious award and the citation noted that not only does Dale do a great job in coaching her own athletes but she has also been successful in supporting parents to volunteer time to qualify as assistant coaches and officials.

The previous weekend a number of Bury’s younger athletes competed in the second Sportshall Athletics meeting of the season and the club fielded strong teams, especially in the u11 events where the girls were winners with some superb individual performances.

Lucy Dent was joint winner of the speed bounce and took third in the three-lap race; Gabriella Idoko won the standing triple jump and Lois Wormald took second in the one-lap race. The team took third in the relay.

The u11 boys took sixth place. George Whalley was seventh in the one-lap race and the vertical jump and Joshua Ardin was sixth in the three-lap race. The team were sixth in both the obstacle and 4x2-lap relays. Joshua and Zac Buckley tied for sixth in the speed bounce and Henry Cooper was fourth in the javelin and 11th in the standing triple jump.

The u13 girls team of Evie Elliott, Summer Barlow and Robyn Wolstenholme finished seventh.

Evie had a great win in the two-lap race and took second in the four-lap race with Robyn 11th. Summer took fourth in the speed bounce with Robyn eighth. Evie also took fourth in the shot.

The u13 boys only had Oliver Cooper in the team and his third place in the shot gave sufficient points for Bury to take 10th place.

The u15 girls’ duo of Blessing Idoko and Jemima Miles took second place, while Jemima was second in the two-lap race with Blessing just behind in third, but she later showed her strength in winning the four-lap race. Jemima took second in both the vertical jump and shot with Blessing third in the vertical jump.

The u15 boys took third place. Ben Gardner won the two-lap race with Jayden Barlow fourth. Jayden also won the speed bounce and the standing long jump and took second in the shot. Ben was third in the vertical jump.

Last Saturday Matt Gartside was delighted to notch up his first win at a parkrun event.

The primary school teacher was not only first across the line in the Bolton event, but he also set a new personal-best time for the course of 18mins 35secs.

Rachel Marshall was fastest woman in the Worsley Woods Parkrun, covering the 5k in 18:55 at her first attempt at the course. Lewis Whittaker, also on his first attempt at the course, crossed the line in 19:44.

At the Peel Parkrun, Giles Bennet set a course PB of 19:22 and was fastest in the V55-59 age category.