A few weeks ago in December, eighteen year old, Katie Byres broke the National Junior Indoor pole vault record jumping 4m 16 in her first indoor competition of the indoor season.

This weekend in Paris, in her second competition, she smashed the record again by improving her personal best by a massive 16cms when clearing 4m 36. This height breaks by 1cm the overall UK Junior record achieved by her training partner Holly Bleasdale. Remarkably this height puts Katie in fourth place in the UK All Time Women rankings, only behind Holly, fellow Sale Harrier Kate Dennison and Janine Whitlock.

Katie is in France with her coach Julien Raffalli and his squad of Andrew Sutcliffe and Holly Bleasdale, training and competing for the next two weeks on the French Elite Pole Vault tour.

Katie said "I'm really pleased to have started the season so well and to have broken the record. I must thank Julien for his hard work putting the training plan together. I know I have worked really hard in pre season and it's great when it all comes together, the exciting bit is we both know there is more to come."

Andrew Sutcliffe also continued his fine start to the season after last year's injury by jumping 5m 22 off a short run in the same competition in Paris.