YOUNG Bury AC athlete Emily Purdy produced the performance of the day at the Greater Manchester Schools Cross Country Championships at Heaton Park, winning the junior girls’ race and qualifying for the English Schools’ Championships in the process.

She was one of seven club runners at Saturday’s event and Polly Fordham also ran well to finish 26th in the race.

Freya Potts should also make the team for the English Schools having taken fifth in the senior girls’ race.

Her sister, Lola, had to settle for 13th in the intermediate girls’ competition.

Sam Smyth ran strongly to take 12th in the senior boys’ race and in the junior boys’ event, Sam Howard and Ciaran O’Reilly took 27th and 48th respectively.

Six Bury athletes travelled to Sheffield to compete in the North of England Indoor Under-15 and u13 Championships and there were superb silver medals for Blessing Idoko and Oliver Cooper.

Blessing took second in the u15 girls’ 200m in 26.65secs - after setting a new personal best of 26.50 in her heat, a time that ranks her 11th in the UK currently.

Oliver set a new PB of 7.31 to take second in the u13 boys’ shot, while Blessing also secured fourth in the 60m final in a season’s best 8.20.

Cooper ran a 60m PB of 9.43 to take eighth in his heat.

Making his club debut, Kudakwashe Mudwakure set PBs of 8.91 and 29.12 in his heats in the 60m and 200m u15 boys’ events.

Lois Wormald set a new PB of 8.95 in her u13 girls’ 60m heat which qualified her for the semi-final where she took sixth in 9.13. She also set a new PB of 29.93 to take fifth in the 200m semi-finals.

Corinne Newton was fifth in the u15 girls’ 800m final in 2:32.51. She set a new best of 2:31.92 to qualify for the final and earlier set a new best of 28.25 in her 200m heat.

Evie Elliott just missed out of qualifying for her u15 girls’ 60m hurdles semi-final, taking third place in her heat in 10.02.

Bury’s younger athletes competed in the Greater Manchester Sportshall League at SportCity and the u11 girls produced a resounding victory ahead of Leigh and Sale.

Lois Wormald was second in the one-lap race, with Gabriella Idoko also making the final where she took fifth place.

Lois also ran in the three-lap race, where she placed third, and Isabella Robinson placed sixth.

The girls won the four-lap relay in a nailbiting race against Leigh.

Lucy Dent took equal first in the speed bounce and followed this with a second place in the standing long jump with Idoko in third.

The pair also competed in the standing triple jumping, taking sixth and fourth respectively

Isabella Robinson was third in the vertical jump and Lois won the javelin with Ruby Dent in fourth.

With just Summer Barlow and Rachel Wolstenholme representing the u13 girls, they did well to secure eighth place. They took 14th and 15th respectively in the two-lap race with Rachel eighth in the six-lap race.

Summer was third in the speed bounce and 12th in the standing long jump. Rachel was ninth in the speed bounce.

The u11 boys took fifth place overall. George Whalley was sixth in the one-lap race, with Zac Buckley ninth. Mikael Younis and Ryan Leigh-Kumawu took 13th and 14th in the three-lap race.

The boys took fourth in the obstacle race and fifth in the 4xtwo-lap relay. Zac took an excellent fourth in the speed bounce with Sammy Duerdin fifth. George finished 11th in the standing long jump with Max Sayers 15th.

Sammy was sixth in the standing triple jump with Ryan ninth.

In the vertical jump, George was seventh, with Ryan one place behind him. Mikael then took sixth in the javelin with Zac in 11th.

Oliver Cooper was Bury’s only competitor in the u13s competition where he took sixth in both the shot and vertical jump and seventh in the standing long jump. His solo effort placed Bury eighth.