BOLTON Harriers has proved it continues to be a production line of top level talent.

The local club can proudly look back on a week which enhanced its reputation as a breeding ground of quality athletes.

It had three athletes competing for a place in the Great Britain Olympic Games team at the qualifying event at the Manchester Regional Stadium last weekend.

Another was only denied the glory of gold in the World Junior Championships by the latest era of amazing African middle distance runners.

And two of the younger athletes produced impressive performances in the English Schools Championships at Gateshead International Stadium.

Rachel Pounds and Naomi Hall represented Greater Manchester in the national schools championships.

Pounds reached the final of the junior girls' 800m and Hall made the final of the junior girls' shot putt.

Pounds could not repeat her earlier performance in the final but still managed to finish a fine sixth in a time of 2mins 15.33secs.

Naomi threw a personal best of 10.23m to finish eighth.

In the AAA's championships in front of a capacity 6,000 crowd at Manchester last week, 400m hurdler Ben Caldwell finished sixth in his heat in a time of 55.69.

High jumper Brian Hall was some way short of his personal best in jumping 2.06 and finished 10th on count back.

The best performer was Hazel Carwardine who reached the final of the long jump and finished eighth with a leap of 5.90m.

It was a disappointment for the 23-year-old who had jumped 6.23m and 6.21m in recent weeks but she was weak after suffering from a bug the previous week and jumped as far as she felt her strength allowed her to do on the day.

It was a shame as the bronze medal was won with a beatable jump of 6.05m.

Tom Lancashire hit the biggest stage when he competed in the World Junior Championships in Grosseto, Italy.

He continued his progress on the world middle distance stage with sixth place in the final. More significantly, he was the first non-African to cross the line in the under-20s event.

He broke his personal best in the semi-final when with 3mins 42.48secs and he ran another fast time of 3:43.31 in the final.

He was some way behind the winner, Abdelati Iguider, who won gold in an incredible time of 3:35.53 which would be good enough to win almost any senior event.

The Moroccan claimed a championship record with his time and he led four more African runners across the line.

Lancashire, who won silver medal in the European Junior Championships last year, said: "I am nowhere near fulfilling my potential and I am learning all the time.

"I know I have to work harder and my goals are long term. I have to believe they can be beaten."

The performances of all the Harriers show the club continues to go from strength to strength and officials invite anyone in the town with talent or enthusiasm for athletics to attend training sessions at Leverhulme Park Athletics Stadium on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, from 7pm to 8.30pm.