Thirteen Bury athletes took to the streets of Manchester over the weekend to compete in the Great Manchester Run.

There were some brilliant performances, with the most notable coming from Ethan Statham, who won the Junior Run on Saturday in a time of 8mins 50secs. Lucy Dent ran strongly to take fourth girls’ place with 9:28, with Kathryn Wolstenholme in 10th in 11:24. Zac Buckley finished 29th in 11:00.

The first race of the Sunday was the Half Marathon. Callum Gaunt set a new personal best of 1:17:33 to take 64th place, while Craig Sykes, running as an England Master, completed the course in 1:24:07. Former 800m runner, Christie Cook, ran strongly to set a new best of 1:39:14. Mother and daughter duo of Julie and Lucy Hill ran brilliantly, with Lucy finishing just in front of her mum, with 1:55:09 versus 1:55:15.

In the 10k race, Alexander Hannay was just outside his PB with a very respectable 36:36. Not far behind was team-mate Leslie Musidi, who crossed the line in 37:14. Coach Paula Gears completed the course in 1:08:01, running with friend Jackie Davies who stopped the clock at 1:07:57.

Further afield, Ben Coop competed in the Edinburgh Half Marathon and took an excellent 24th place with 1:14:40, with which he was delighted given his training has been compromised with an injury.

On May 15, Bury hosted the first of a series of Mini League fixtures. Organiser and coach, Helen Vaughan, was delighted that nearly 100 youngsters from local athletics clubs competed at the event. There was success on the track and the field for Bury youngsters with gold medals going to Isaac Abeng (under-nine boys’ 80m and 150m); Niamh Murray (U11 girls’ 80m); Mylah Collier (U11 girls’ 600m, long jump and javelin); Isaac Cullen (U11 boys’ 600m); Violette Overlunde (U11 girls’ 150m); Hugo Wells (U11 boys’ long jump); Rahmese Knight (U9 girls’ long jump); Harry Sample (U9 boys’ long jump) and Rocco Hunter (U11 boys’ javelin). The other Bury young athletes to win medals were Benjamin Vickers, Lois Green, Myla Bryan, Rowan Bowden and Reuban Melia.