WEYMOUTH St Paul’s Harriers made a successful start to the season in the Dorset County Champion-ships in Bournemouth by coming away with a UK number one ranking and a host of medals between them.

Top under-13 girl performer was Savannah Evans, who took gold in the javelin (19.53m) and the shot (6.99m), and silver in the discus (15.19m), as well as ninth in the long jump (3.16m) and sixth in the 100m heats.

Hannah Westhenry, also in her first county championships, did well taking silver in the under-13 high jump (1.20m), along with fourth place in both the 75m hurdles (15.06) and 1,500m (7:02.3), fifth in the 800m (3:18.7) and eighth in the long jump (3.33m). For the under-15 girls, Saxon Roy came fourth in the high jump (1.35m).

In the under-13 boys, Luke Strong bagged silver in the high jump (1.20m) and finished fifth in his 200m heat (34.5).

The leading light in the under-17 category was Ben Westhenry.

The teenager, competing in an older age group, took part in the junior men’s 2,000m steeplechase in order to gain some practice ahead of the World, European and Commonwealth Youth Games trials in Milton Keynes.

He came away with a silver medal, a number one ranking in the UK and a top-10 UK all time record of 6:05.00.

Westhenry bettered his time to 6:02.01 in Milton Keynes, a world standard time and sixth fastest under-17 of all time, but just outside the UK under-18 qualifying time.

Tom Austin came fourth in the under-20 2,000m steeplechase at the county championships with a new pb of 6:50.1.