A Report by our 'Northern Correspondent'

The indoor season is moving into full swing with the first major championships of the year and already two City of Stoke under 20 athletes have won gold medals: James Gardner in the Long Jump and Liam Clowes in the 200m.

James who lost the title by one centimetre last year to the last jump of the competition was under pressure again being behind after the 4th round to a Liverpool jumper who had achieved a pb with 6.81m. At that point James' best on the day was 6.64m and a sense of foreboding was descending.

However James hasn't trained as hard as he has with John Crotty over Christmas to be beaten again and his fifth round jump of 6.89m gave him some breathing space but he knew the Liverpool jumper had the last jump of the competition so he had to make his 6th jump count and he did with 7.01m - officially a new pb (certainly indoors). This was too much for the opposition who tried too hard on the last jump and fouled to leave James shaking with relief.

Although in the under 20s competition this jump was the longest of the whole championships and moves James to 9th in the UK on the overall power of 10 rankings. Having conquered the North of England he moves onto the Welsh Championships in 2 weeks time.

As James was starring in the field Crewe and Nantwich athlete Liam Clowes was putting in some outstanding performances on the track. Liam represented City of Stoke on a number of occasions last season as a higher claim athlete.

After finishing 4th in the 60m on the Saturday in a very close final where there was only 0.05sec between the first 4 athletes Liam moved on to the 200m on the Sunday which involved 3 rounds. Liam won his heat and semi in 22.64 and 22.52 but was literally saving his best for the final where he beat high quality opposition by 0.4 sec in 21.88 which will improve his current position as the number one under 20 in the country - in his first season in the age group.

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