HORWICH'S youngsters took the limelight this week starting at the Curley’s 5k where 17-year-old Lewis Wilkes won the third race in the series.

After two previous second places, he was duly awarded the event's first prize.

Milly Lever made her first appearance in the series this year and scorched around the course at Wilderswood.

In the first of Trafford AC’s highly competitive meetings at Longford Park in Stretford, there were four gold and two silver medals for Horwich juniors.

Alistair Sharrock had a golden haul of three medals at long jump, 75m and 150m, while Isabella Merritt also gained gold at 300m.

Matthew Flatters took silver at 1500m and Lucas Brennand, deploying an elegant Fosbury Flop, earned silver in the high jump.

The Harriers’ enthusiastic squad of junior fell runners was enhanced further for the second round of the English junior fell championships at Blacko Hill by the addition of a quartet of fell debutants including, at under-9s, six-year-old Maddison Wilkinson.

At u11s Maya Clayden made her debut and at u13s it was Sam Bradley's and Marty Arnot-Smith’s first fell races, Marty making a smart transition from the Aussie cross country to the Lancashire fells.

Top results came from the ever-consistent trio of Toby Middleton, fifth at u15s, Milly Lever, seventh girl in the same age group, and Robert Seddon, fifth u17s.

Earlier in the week, Toby had another great result at the open-age Bunny Run where he was second u15.

Marty followed up on his fell exploits on Saturday by coming home third at the Queens Park junior parkrun on Sunday, equalling his personal best of nine minutes in doing so.

The juniors’ enthusiasm continues to inspire the vets.

At Curley’s there was another trio of series winners with Neil Wilkes taking the V50 title, David Barnes the V60 and Gillian Smith the F65 crown.

David Barnes followed up with a much-improved result at the Radcliffe 10k but could not get close to Rob Jackson, even though some of the runners in the middle of the field were gee-ed up by a loose horse bolting down the Outwood Trail.

Jackson has been running this race for 30 years and his selective schedule of racing and intensive training continues to pay off as he was 15th overall and second V50.

At parkrun, Simon Pymm was first at Stamford Park, Suzanne Budgett was second woman at Witton, Alyssia Jackson came home third female at Haigh Woodland and Neil Holding was third overall at Bolton.

Horwich RMI Harriers results: Wardle Skyline fell race – 35th Gary Chadderton 58:39, 68th Doug Fleming 1:05:11;

Baildon Boundary Way fell race – 42nd Nick Kelly 1:47:07, 110th Sandra Kelly 2:00:56;

Bunny Run 3 fell race (Haworth) – 12th Toby Middleton 18:33, 132nd Jason Middleton 29:26;

Curley’s 5k trail race – 1st Lewis Wilkes 19:19, 16th Milly Lever 21:45, 34th Neil Wilkes 23:56, 38th David Unsworth 24:11, 39th David Barnes 24:12, 81st Andrew Storey 29:21, 117th Kristina Mountain 34:49, 123rd Gillian Smith 36:50;

Blacko Hill junior fell race: U9 – 36th Fern O’Brien 8:28, 61st Maddison Wilkinson 10:41; u11 – 61st Charlotte Vickers 13:24, Isobelle Wilkinson 14:47, 94th Gabriella Collings 16:56, 99th Maya Clayden 20:49; u13 – 45th Emma Bradley 23:05, 46th Sam Bradley 23:11, 52nd Imogen Andreassen 23:38, 54th Charlotte Wilkinson 23:52, 58th Lucas Collings 24:24, 62nd Aleksander Clayden 24:43, 84th Theo Middleton 27:06, 89th Marty Arnot-Smith 27:31, 92nd Imogen Wrigley 27:59, 95th Ethan Isaacs 29:03; u15 – 5th Toby Middleton 22:49, 20th Isaac Battye 26:18, 31st Milly Lever 27:33, 60th Freya Whittle 31:54; u17/u19 – 12th Robert Seddon 34:07, 32nd Lucas Milliken 38:02;

Radcliffe 10k multi-terrain race – 15th Rob Jackson 40:40, 66th David Barnes 48:02, 256th Kristina Mountain 1:09:06.