Britain's best athletes gathered at the weekend at Sheffield's EIS Arena for the National indoor Championships with the crème de la crème seeking qualification for the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul in March. It was a weekend of outstanding performances and Sale Harriers had as many as twenty athletes in the finals with several featured in the televised programme.

Our World Junior Bronze medallist, pole vaulter Andy Sutcliffe was the club's highpoint of the first day's competition when he moved into the big time winning his first senior UK title with a fantastic PB of 5m55cms and beating UK's No.1 in the process. "I'm really chuffed" he said, "I never wasn't expecting to go so high"

Seventeen year old Katie Byres also vaulted to a UK Junior record of 4m37cms and took the senior silver medal. It was also a fantastic weekend for club coach Julien Rafelli, who not only brought these two young athletes to the pinnacle of their success, but also coaches Britain's No 1 Holly Bleasdale who broke the stadium record and came within a whisker of breaking the world record.

European U23 bronze medallist, Andy Robertson, in the 60m, also moved his blossoming career onto the big time. Lined up among the heavyweights of the sprinting world, he pushed to the line Britain's No 1 sprinter, Dwain Chambers; took all the others as scalps, and though he just missed out on the gold medal he recorded a fantastic PB of 6.61(he'd also recorded a PB in the semi-final) that booked him his ticket to Istanbul. Andy's now won three age group National titles, two at U17 (60m and 200m) and one junior title 960m). He's also got a bronze medal from the European U23 100m Championships last year, as well as relay silver

Former commonwealth Youth Champion Abigail Irozuru also made a big breakthrough in the long jump in adding 10cms to her PB in taking the silver medal with a leap of 6m44cms. (Compiled by Fechin Mc Cormick)

 Others who made the Finals were....

Roy Ejiak 200m Silver 22.01sec ( ran 21.67s pb in semis)
Ryan Oswald 200m 'B' Gold 21.94secs
Nick Samuels 1500m 9th 3m 53.12s
Adele Lassu HJ 4th 1m 79cm
Stephannie Pywell HJ 5th 1m 79cm
Tom Mosley 200m 'B' 4th 22.13secs
Jessica Taylor LJ 6th 5m 84cm
Emma Lyons LJ 7th 5m 74cm
Claire Linskill TJ 8th 12m 22cm
Ahtollah Rose TJ 11th 11m 66cm
Jenna Hill 1500m 5th 4m 29.75cm PB
Kirsten Mcaslin 400m 6th 55.18s ( 54.73s in semis)
Nick Gayle 60m H 4th 7.86sec
James R Davies LJ 6th 7m 25cm PB
Chris Baker HJ 4th 2m 16cm
                                                         Others not making the final..
Clovis Asong 400m 48.31secs
Sara McGreevy 60m H 8.56sec
Daniel Needham 60m H 8.26secs