SWINDON Harriers’ athletes really cashed in on the 300m and 400m races at the latest Oxon & Bucks Midweek Open at Horspath.

Over five races, 14 Harriers’ produced a total of 11 personal bests. Although, strictly speaking, eight of those were running the distance for the first time.

Nonetheless, take a bow Finley Kuklinski (U13, 46.32secs), Elsie Scrase (U13, 47.94secs), Molly Lyne (U15, 49.27secs), and Hamish Murray (U13, 51.92secs) in the 300m event.

Meanwhile, in the 400m, Arthur Reason (U15, 62.11secs), Ben Janes (U15, 59.78secs), Maya Trybala-Lugembe (U15, 62.96secs), and Ella Nicholls (U15, 70.76secs) all made promising debuts.

Of the three who actually improved their times, Amelia Brandon carved over two seconds from her 300m PB with 47.78secs while U13 runner Lottie Harding moved from 52.61secs to 50.17secs.

While, in the 400m, Al Virgilio sliced 0.81secs off his best set earlier this season, with 52.68secs. Virgilio has now set 13 personal bests this season over 200, 300m, 400m, 800m, and 1500m, which adds up to a terrific summer for the youngster.

There were plenty of other excellent performances at Horspath too, one being Josh Paradise who – in his first season at the club – improved his 100m PB from 12.57secs to 12.46secs and in the 200m went from 25.85secs to 25.33secs.

In the long jump, Kuklinski added a PB of 4.57m to his debut in the 300m, with Ellie Charlesworth (U13) adding a centimetre to her PB with 3.68m.

In the shot, Harding smashed her PB by 32cms with a throw of 6.96m. Since last season, she has now added 1.5m to her best with the 2.72kg implement.

Elsewhere, competing at the England Athletics Combined Events Championships in Manchester, Oakley Hogan finished an excellent 10th on his debut in the U15s octathlon.

Hogan scored 3,031 points, which included two personal bests in the 100m (13.33secs) and the 80m hurdles (14.43secs), while he was also tackling three events for the very first time; the 400m, 1000m and the technically-challenging pole vault.

Hogan applied himself well in all those disciplines, and going into the final event, the 1000m, he had climbed as high as sixth.

But, unfortunately, the Harriers athlete then dropped two places despite scoring 500 points – his best individual event tally of the competition – for the two-and-a-half laps of the track.