It was a case of girl power for Bury AC at the North West Counties Road Relays held on the campus of Edge Hill University on Sunday.

The senior women’s A team performed brilliantly to take third team overall and retain their Greater Manchester champions title. Sinead Taylor covered the first leg in 18mins 5secs, handing over to Alia Braithwaite who completed her 5k leg in 18:58, with Caitlyn Johnston running strongly to finish with 19:00. The under-11 girls’ A team came very close to taking the county title, placing eighth overall but finished as second Greater Manchester team, just one second behind the new county champions Salford Met in the first race. The trio comprised of Myla Bryan (8:10), Niamh Murray (8:24) and Mylah Collier (7:53).

The senior men’s A team placed 12th overall and just missed out on a medal by taking fourth Greater Manchester team. Martin Clark ran a superb first leg with 15:39, followed by Jack Griffiths (17:26), Ben Coop (16:09) and Luke Harreld (17:13). One of the strongest individual performances of the day came from Ethan Statham in the first stage of the U13 boys’ race. He recorded 10:05 and was seventh fastest on the day in his first year in the age group. Other solo runs came from Ella Straffon-Finch (U13 girls - 13:23) and Max Worsley (U11 boys - 7:39).

Bury’s other competing teams were the men’s B, C and D teams placing ninth, 14th and 17th Greater Manchester teams. The teams respectively comprised of Byron Edwards (17:50), Conor Wilkinson (17:39), Paul Johnston (17:55) and Callum Gaunt (17:03) in the B; Paul Marshall (18:28), Alexander Hannay (18:24), Craig Sykes (18:53) and Peter Barrow (19:28) in the C and Matt Finch (19:15), Finlay Wheatcroft (19:43), Curtis Simpson (19:25) and Declan Tattersall (19:00) in the D. The senior women’s B team comprised of Sarah Flett (20:23), Rose Johnson (20:15) and Bev McAuley (23:27) and they placed eighth Greater Manchester team. The U11 girls’ B team were Sophie Straffon-Finch (8:59), Evelyn McDonald (10:15) and Honey-May Long (9:23) and they also took eighth Greater Manchester team.

Sunday saw Bury host the final Trafford medal meeting of the season with the event seeing some superb personal-best performances for Bury athletes. The performances of the day came from U15 throwing sensation Ben Clarke. He won the shot competition with 8.77m, took silver in the discus with 22.95, and in his favoured javelin event he launched the spear out to 52.18, a new PB and a distance that moves him to fourth in the UK.

In the U11 girls’ 600m, Mylah Collier shrugged off the effects of her race in the road relays in the morning to win gold in a new PB of 1:58.96. She underlined her resilience by setting new bests in the 75m (11.53) and 150m (23.28).

Also in the U11s, Isabelle Nott sets new PBs in the 600m (2:14.93) and 75m (13.10). Sister Matilda set new bests in the U13s 75m (11.06) and 150m (21.80). Anabelle Hinze took a bronze in the long jump (3.56 PB) and threw well in the shot (6.29) and javelin (15.65). For the U15s, Harry Dada March set a PB of 12.63 in winning his heat of the 100m and Carraghen Spence set a season’s best of 14.80 in the 100m before recording 31.38 in the 200m.

U17 Like Drinnan set a new PB in the 200m, winning his heat in 25.58 and covered the 100m in 12.36, also winning his heat, while U20 Rocksan Minkeng took third in his 400m heat with 58.98.