Athletics: Guy and Ray win gold at British Universities champs

Lasswade’s Guy Learmonth (Loughborough) and Ray Bobrownicki (Edinburgh) duly delivered the gold and there was a bonus silver medal for Edinburgh’s Emily Stewart at the British Universities Indoor Athletics Championships at Sheffield yesterday.

Learmonth successfully defended his 800 metres title, blitzing the first 600m in 79.7 seconds before coming home in 1:49.29, nearly two seconds clear of his nearest rival Zac Randall (Bath).

“That was the fastest I’ve ever gone through 600 and a bit too fast, but to run quicker I’ll have to get used to going at that pace,” enthused the 19-year-old Scottish record-holder, whose last race of the indoor season it was.

In a repeat of the Scottish National the previous Sunday, Bobrownicki again defeated David Smith (Strathclyde) in the high jump, both athletes clearing 2.19m before failing at 2.23m, but Bobrownicki getting the verdict on countback.

Emily Stewart beat her indoor personal best by almost two seconds in finishing second in the women’s 1500m in 4:23.22.

“It was nice to have a good race for the end of the indoor season,” said Stewart.

Other silver medals came to Jax Thoirs (Glasgow), who equalled his own National under-20 record of 5.10m in the pole vault and Diane Ramsey (Strathclyde), who was second in the women’s 400m in 54.95.

Peter Loudon (Edinburgh AC) twice bettered his personal best in taking the silver medal in the AAA under-20 championships in Birmingham at the weekend.

Having clocked 1:53.88 for third in his heat, Loudon stepped up to finish runner-up in 1:52.90.

Clubmate Silvan Mercantonio beat his best 200m indoors by half a second when he clocked 24.03 in his heat of the Under-15 200m.

Another clubmate, Ben Robbins, set a personal best of 22.51 secs and missed qualifying by 0.03 sec in the Under-17 200m.

Emma Nuttall (EAC) was second in a universities high jump contest in Saskatoon, Canada, clearing 1.79m.