HORWICH Harrier George Martindale won the Horwich Triathlon in a great time of 1hr 45mins 35secs to register another victory for the club.

Despite slower transition times, he managed to hold off the Ironman UK winner of 2019, Brian Fogarty, and a high-class field in a performance that shows he is back to his best that saw him go sub-nine hours in the Barcelona Ironman in 2019.

Layne Mercer and Ian Hamer had good results to finish high up in their respective M50 and M60 categories.

Dan Gilbert ran the tough Pendle Cloughs race which is renowned for its energy-sapping rollercoaster of a route and his eighth spot gave him third M40 place.

Paul Boardman continues to impress and having taken first M60 place in the Astley Park race, he was then second M60 at Pinhaw fell race on Friday and first M60 in the New Balance trail race at Hurst Green on Saturday.

At Kentmere, Martyn Pollitt and Isaline Kneale had to beat four hours to record a result in the Kong Mini Mountain Marathon and did it with nine minutes to spare to finish as the top Mixed V60 team in the competition that requires mountain navigation skills.

The Harriers took a large squad of 19 juniors to Carlisle for the latest round of the Youth Development League where a great team effort took second place behind East Cheshire AC.

There were several AAA-graded performances. Joel Ige had another brilliant all-round event achieving AAA grade one results in winning the under-13 100m, 150m and long jump.

Ryan McCaffery also had a triple win for u15s in the 100m, long jump and high jump - all of which achieved AAA grade four - while Alice Arrowsmith won the u13 75m in an AAA grade three time and Ilyana Garin won the u15 high jump in a AAA grade four effort.

Horwich’s strength in young athletes was also shown last weekend by a 12-strong squad competing in the Junior FRA English fell championships at Todd Crag on Loughrigg above Ambleside in the Lakes.

The top performances were in the u17/19 mens’ race where Toby Middleton took sixth place with Isaac Battye in 11th.

In the junior groups, Harry Yates had a top-10 result in the u13 race and there were spirited performances from the Harriers, several of whom are new to this standard of fell racing.

At the Chorley 10k road race, 11 Harriers took part and Sam Fairhurst, after an impressive set of trail results, was able to translate that form to the road with 35:43 for seventh place in a field of more than 800 runners.

Colin Gregory and Gareth Booth were second and third in the M50 category and Katherine Newall was second F45.

Steve Thomasson, en route to international events, took on the Beaverbrook Blackpool 10k gaining his second best ever time for the distance in 44:28.