IT was yet another successful Northern Indoor Championships for Bolton United Harriers this weekend.

The highlight of the weekend was an outstanding 1,500m gold medal for middle-distance star Jonny Kay.

He destroyed the field, lapping a couple of competitors and coming home first in a time of 3mins 51.58secs.

This time is the qualifying standard for the British Championships to be held in Glasgow in February and will be Kay’s first British Championships.

Joining him at the championship will be sprint star Hannah Kelly, who has already qualified for the 200m based on her performances in 2019.

On Saturday she decided to step up and compete over 400m as a ‘bit of fun’.

In only her third ever 400m race in her heat she led from the gun and easily qualified for the final in a time of 58.13.

With extremely heavy legs only two hours later Kelly lined up for the final. Despite being a virtual 400m novice she ran through the pain to take the bronze medal in an impressive time of 56.94.

Also in the 400m under-20 Olivia Kimbowa, in her first indoor 400m race, finished a fantastic fourth in the final.

As ever, she judged her race perfectly, didn’t panic and came through strongly in the last 40m.

Jack Dickinson competed for the first time since making the final of the 400m at last year’s Northern indoors.

Despite having trained very little in the last eight months he ran a gutsy race to finish fourth in his heat.

There were three Bolton athletes in the 60m short sprint.

In the u20 category, Taiwo Taiwo – having missed nearly two years of training due to injury – was very nervous lining up against the best sprinters in the north of England. She did not disappoint, however, and blasted her semi-final by recording a time of 7.93.

This was her second fastest time ever and testimony to all her hard work. She stormed to seventh in the final and is now ready to push on and run fast times in the summer.

Abigail Adeniji lined up in the u17 women’s 60m. She ran a controlled heat to qualify for the semi-final and came a creditable eighth despite suffering with a knee injury.

In the men’s 60m Eniola Adedotun ran a controlled heat and excelled in the semi-final, coming second in 7.17.

This was not only a big personal best but it meant yet another of Les Hall’s talented sprint group had beaten their coach’s PB. Adedotun then finished eighth in the final.

Multi-talented athlete Julia Winogrodzka had a busy Saturday morning.

Within 90 minutes she had to run three 60m hurdles races as well as compete in the long jump.

She breezed through to the final of the hurdles and finished sixth, with her best time of the day 9.04. She also came ninth in the long jump with a distance of 5.26m.

U20 athlete Rebecca Weekes set a new indoor PB of 27.24 in the 200m, coming second in her semi-final.

Unfortunately she did not progress to the final as one of the fastest losers but still ran a great race at her first Northern championships.

Kelly and Kay have qualified for the senior British Championships and all the other athletes have achieved the qualifying times for the England Athletics age group championships.