Athletics: McKelvie chips in with personal best

McKelvie reached 65.03 metres compared with her previous best of 63.76m to finish a close second to English rival Sarah Holt who shared in a £5000 bonus prize with two other athletes.

McKelvie’s prize was relatively modest by comparison but she won an £85 bonus for throwing a personal best during the competition.

Another Scottish champion, Jayne Nisbet (EAC), picked up a £500 cash bonus for winning the high jump with a leap of 1.78m but was disappointed: “It was a poor competition and there was no atmosphere, I can’t wait now to get into winter training for next year,” she said.

Neither of the second two in the series rankings, England’s Emma Perkins and Nisbet’s clubmate Emma Nuttall, took part.

Capital thrower Andy Frost was fourth in the men’s hammer with 70.18m behind Scottish Commonwealth Games team-mate Mary Dry (71.62m).

Emily Dudgeon (EAC) made another big improvement in the B 800m, cutting her best by two seconds to 2:07.73 with clubmate Kathryn Evans clocking 2:10.00 behind her.

Scotland’s Commonwealth Youth Games choice Nick Percy (Isle of Wight) was in super form at the AAA Under-17 Championships at Bedford, winning the discus with a throw of 56.42m, being pipped for gold in the shot by two centimetres after throwing 16.99m, a massive 1.5m improvement on his best, and then setting a Scottish Under-17 record of 66.94m in the hammer yesterday.

Capital sprinter Ben Robbins (EAC) came within a fraction of breaking Craig Erskine’s long-standing Scottish Under-15 400m record of 49.96 seconds, slashing his personal best to 50.18 secs only to be beaten into the silver-medal position by a new championship record of 49.97.

Kimberley Reed (EAC), as expected, won the Under-17 hammer with a throw of 52.76m and Olivia O’Hare (EAC) was third in the under-17 800m in a new best of 2:10.66, remarkably the same time as Central’s Kathryn Gillespie achieved for third in the under-15 race.