Avery sets pb and teen Sam makes mark

CARL AVERY continued his run of good form by posting another pb at the Glasgow Athletics meeting at Scotstoun, writes BILL McGUIRK.

The Morpeth athlete has already this year run quicker than ever before over 5,000m on the track and 5k on the roads and he added to that with a pb of 8min 18.04secs for 3,000m in Scotland.

Avery was content to follow the leaders in the early stages before moving into second place with three laps to go.

Fife’s Logan Rees, having his first outing over the distance, took up the running as Avery slotted into his slipstream.

With just over two laps to go, Avery made a brave move for victory by taking the lead.

At the bell, only a yard or two separated the duo as Avery pushed for home.

However, the home-based athlete managed to regain the lead midway down the back straight and although Avery gave it his all, Rees came home in 8:18.34 to win by 10 metres.

Avery’s time of 8:18.04 took 24 seconds of his previous best.

Wallsend’s Sam Charlton, despite being under-17, lined up in the same race as Avery.

Charlton, who broke the longstanding under-17 3,000m record at the recent North East Counties Championships, got in touch with the organisers to see if they could find him a slot in the main event, which they did.

It proved a superb move as the teenager finsihed seventh in 8:33.48, which was a new pb and a 12-second improvement on his NE Championship-winning time.

North Shields Poly’s Guy Bracken contested the 3,000m C race and finished fourth in 9:15.02, his quickest outdoors this year.

Morpeth’s Northern CrossCountry champion Mihairi MacLennon travelled from her Edinburgh base and won the women’s 3,000m in 9:32.06.

MacLennon’s team-mate Rhiannon Hedley tackled the 800m and finished fifth in the J race in a new best time of 2:21.02.

Meanwhile, in Belgium, Northumbria University’s Charlie Myers was competing in the Memorial Leon Buyle International meeting in Oordegem.

Myers cleared 5:55m to win the pole vault competition, a height 5cms better than his previous best.

Myers is only one of two British athletes who have cleared the qualification height for August’s European Championships in Berlin.