LOREN Bleaken ended her indoor campaign on a high with a silver medal at the England Athletics Indoor Championships in Sheffield, writes Kevin Fahey.

The 18-year-old former Hardenhuish School student from Marshfield was runner-up in the U20 women’s 400m, clocking a season’s best time of 55.31secs.

The result will give Bleaken a big boost in confidence after her first winter working with new coach Malcolm Arnold and adjusting her training to his methods.

And while Bleaken failed to improve upon her indoor personal best of 54.87secs that she set last year she can also see a positive progression having opened her indoor campaign with 57.10secs in January.

Bleaken was the only Team Bath medal winner at the championships but there were a number of other fine performances.

England international Grace Davies-Redmond, who lives in Bradford on Avon, reached the final of the U17 women’s 300m and finished a creditable sixth.

Davies-Redmond also reached the semi-finals of the 200m, in which she set a season’s best in the heats and the 60m but suffered disqualification in the short sprint for a false start.

Wiltshire sprinters William Kennedy and Owen Harnett also ran both the 60m and 200m.

Matravers School student Kennedy clocked an indoor personal best of 23.09secs for third place in the semi-finals of the 200m with Lavington School student Harnett also posting a personal best of 23.15 in the other semi.

Box athlete Amelia Hempleman-Adams was 12th in the U20 women’s high jump.

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