BOLTON United Harriers’ Hannah Kelly followed up her fantastic bronze medal in the 200m at the English Schools’ Championships with a call-up to the national team.

On Saturday, she pulled on her England vest at the Julie Rose Stadium in Ashford, Kent and lined up with England teammate Georgina Adam against the best sprinters from Scotland, Wales and All Ireland in the Schools International Athletic Board competition.

The sun was shining but once again, the conditions didn't favour sprinters due to a strong headwind. Drawn in the unfavoured lane eight, she knew a good bend was important.

Kelly blasted out of the blocks and entered the straight in the lead, leaving most of the girls in her wake, and was still leading with 40m to go before Adam passed her. With just five metres remaining, she was denied what seemed a certain silver but Irish number one Lauren Roy dipped at the right time to push Kelly into third, in a time of 25.28secs.

Agonisingly, she was only 0.09 seconds from gold, but was delighted to add to her ever-growing medal haul. Only an hour later, Kelly lined up for the first leg of the 4x100m relay. The England quartet all showed their class by clocking a winning time of 46.85.

Proud sprint coach Les Hall, hasn't been surprised by Kelly's performances over the summer. He said: "Hannah’s success is testimony to her dedication and hard work. She has the ability and mental strength to continue to improve and hopefully gain more and more international honours." The sprint star will take a deserved break now before targeting the Northern Inter-county Championships and the Sainsbury’s School Games in September.

Several Blue Vests were among the 2,094 field in the Ironman UK competition in Bolton. Tom Lucas was the first to cross the finishing line, following an outstanding bike ride in which he overtook clubmate Scott Crompton, though he began to tire in the second half of the marathon and clearly enjoyed the final jog in to Bolton town centre for 389th overall.

Crompton excelled in the swim with the quickest of the Harriers’ times and began to claw back Lucas' lead before also slowing through the final run checkpoints. Matt Pemrick went under 80-minute mark in the water, while Kam Patel, who only learned to swim last year, knew the toughest element was the first.

He survived the time limit cut-off by just five minutes and did not look back – even after seven hours on the bike he was the quickest of the Blue Vests in the running element.

Completing the Bolton United contingent, Chris Pickford finished with an amazing 100m dash in 15 seconds. Steady swim and runs sandwiched drama on the bike ride, when a snapped chain put paid to hopes of a quicker time. Despite the disruption to his rhythm and an understandable panic at the most unplanned of events, he recovered composure well to go under 4hrs 30mins on the run.

Results

Tom Lucas – 12:12:40 (Swim: 1:26:03, Swim: 6:05:39, Run: 4:22:15), Scott Crompton – 12:26:52 (Swim: 1:15:55, Bike: 6:39:07, Run: 4:18:16), Matt Pemrick – 13:11:11 (Swim: 1:19:02, Bike: 6:38:52, Run: 4:52:59), Kamlesh Patel – 13:47:54 (Swim: 2:14:23, Bike: 7:08:45, Run: 4:03:05), Christian Pickford – 13:57:43 (Swim: 1:40:16, Bike: 7:30:49, Run: 4:24:20).