IT was a slow-burning season for Will Crisp but it finally caught fire with a tremendous double-medal finale, writes KEVIN FAHEY.

Barely a week after the 16-year-old Swindon Harrier won a brilliant silver medal in the under 17 men’s 800m at the England Athletics Championships, he added another silver at the Sainsbury’s UK School Games in Loughborough.

“I am really happy to end my season like that with two national medals,” said Crisp, who lives in Hinton Parva, near Wanborough.

“Okay, it has not been the season I would have liked but it hasn’t ended up too bad either. It has certainly been a good week for me.”

The fact that the week started off with a bunch of outstanding GCSE results underlined why Crisp’s decision to put his athletics ambitions second this summer proved to be the right one, even if he found it hard initially to accept some below-par performances.

“That is why I probably felt very nervous going into the race at Loughborough and didn’t have a good night’s sleep before,” added Crisp.

“I decided to stay at the back in a slow first lap and then it started to speed up. With 200m to go there were five us in contention.

“I managed to get most of them but not Alex (Botterill), who also won the previous weekend in Bedford.”

York’s Botterill won comfortably in 1minute 56.01seconds, with Crisp second in 1:57.70 and Adrian Lloyd-Davies of Bridgnorth third in 1:57.98.

“I would have like to have run faster to get higher up the UK rankings but at least I peaked for the championships,” added Crisp, who is coached by Bryan Clinton at the Harriers.

“It was nice to beat some of the guys who beat me at the English Schools’ Championships and that is a real confidence boost for me going into the winter and showed that the hard work did pay off.”

The season also saw Crisp improve his personal best to 1:54.70, which he set when finishing fifth in the English Schools’ Championships to leave him eighth in the UK U17 Rankings and top in the South West.

n FORMER British international Wendy Nicholls admitted she nearly missed Sunday’s Chippenham Half Marathon, having only recently returned from holiday.

“I had forgotten it was on until one of my training partners told me his wife was running it and I just made the entry deadline on Thursday,” said Nicholls, who lives in Fairford and competes for Cirencester AC.

“I have not done enough long runs to be honest to be fit to race and I quickly realised that.

“But it is a great race to run and really enjoyable and it was nice to come third (in the women’s standings) and win a handy bonus.”

Due to her fitness, Nicholls’ time in third place of 1hr 27mins 14secs wasn’t her best on what was a fast route.