CHIPPENHAM teenager Jake Burkey is celebrating a fantastic start to the new track season.

On the opening weekend the 17-year-old Sheldon School athlete competed in four disciplines at two different events and recorded personal bests in them all.

On Saturday, Burkey was in action at the Windsor Slough Eton & Hounslow Open Meeting in Eton and notched up personal bests of 11.6secs for the 100m and 23.00secs in the 200m, eclipsing his previous bests of 11.9secs and 24.3secs respectively.

Then the following day Burkey made the shorter trip to Bath University for Team Bath’s FieldFest Meeting and added 10cms to his PB in the high jump with 1.75m and in his speciality discipline of the long jump soared to a legal best of 6.49m.

“I am really pleased with my start to the outdoor season,” said Burkey.

“I have worked very hard during the winter with my coach (Colin Baross) so hopefully this is just the start and I can get better.

“It usually takes me a while to get into my rhythm and reach my best so to get four personal bests in the first weekend represents a really good start and something I can build upon.”

Burkey’s main target for the summer will remain the long jump, in which he ranked second in the South West at under 17s level last year although he has now stepped up into the under 20 men’s age group so will face much stiffer competition.

“I will try and qualify for the Wiltshire team to take part in the English Schools’ Championships and the standard I need is 6.80m though I would like to get as close to seven metres as possible,” added Burkey.

Burkey was not the only Team Bath athlete to impress in the club’s meeting on Sunday which attracted 150 athletes Hilperton’s Rory Howorth threw a personal best in the shot adding one centimetre to his previous mark but his high jump didn’t go quite to plan.

There were a number of other personal bests on the day, among them Dougal Cusack-Brown and Jude Brotherwood finishing first and second in the U17 men’s high jump with 1m75 and 1m70 respectively.

Imogen Leakey (1m45), Jenna Doyle (1m35) and Jude Darby (1m45) also impressed with PBs in the high jump while in the long jump Kiran Carter (5m33), James Chadwick (5m57), Ben Game (4m95) and Robyn Ellison (4m83) all made their mark.

Jack Bardzil (11m40), Finn Gillow (10m88) and Oli Sydenham (10m95) caught the eye in the triple jump and Gabriella Holt threw 41m34 in the hammer using a new heavier weight.

n AT THE Yeovil Spring Open, the Lavington club's F38 disability athlete Charlie Goodwin improved his best for discus twice and maintained his third position in UK in his classification.

Both U20 Jacob Wilkinson and U17 Josh Weyman improved their 100m times and U15 Matt Bark-Churchill equalled his 11.97 100m time and set a new best in his 200m, winning both events. U15 Will Morris won his 800m in a new best time, which currently ranks him number one in the SW.

On the same day at the Team Bath Field Fest, U17 Niamh Flanagan threw three personal bests in the discus.