Captain Claire led from the front on a busy weekend for the PANVAC golden oldies

​Last year the ladies won gold and the men bronze, establishing PANVAC as the top masters team in the East of England.

There seems no reason why they can't be up there again after topping their group qualifying table in style after another big win in the final match at the Embankment.

As usual team captain Claire Smith led by example, winning the over 35 200m in a time of 27.8. Smith also won the 400m hurdles.

Wendy Day won the over 50 200m and long jump, while Elisabeth Sennit-Clough went under six minutes when winning the over 35 mile in a time of 5:59.7.

Judith Jagger won three over 60 events, the 300m hurdles, javelin and discus.

She also finished second in the 200m and long jump, while Andrea Jenkins secured maximum points in the over 35 javelin and discus. Sally Pusey won the over 50 discus.

There was a PANVAC clean sweep in the discus with Simon Achurch, Tim Needham and Jim Gillespie topping the three men's age groups.

Achurch, who threw the discus 32.02m, also won the over 35 javelin.

Karl Eve won the over 50 javelin, and also secured maximum pole vault points when clearing a height of 2.20m.

Andrew Robson crossed the line first in the over 50 200m and won the long jump, while Gerry Watson won the over 60 200m on his club debut.

Sean Reidy ran 58.7 to be first over the line in the over 35 400m hurdles, while Brian Corleys with 4:58.3 and Dave Knighton with 5:30.9 won the over 35 and over 50 mile races respectively.

Several of the all-conquering PANVAC Masters athletes had a busy weekend.

As well as racing for their club many competed for the Eastern Masters team in the annual Re gional Championship match which was staged at Nuneaton.

Sean Reidy ran a 16.81 100m hurdles to win the over 35 race.

This was his quickest time over the distance for four years.

Kevin Bates threw 10.41m to finish as runner-up in the over 70 shot.

Andrew Spour finished third in the over 35 200m and Claire Smith took third spot in the over 35 400m.

Dave Brown clocked 53.47 when placing fifth in the over 35 400m.

NATIONAL LEAGUE

A lack of travelling athletes caused PANVAC to finish down in 8th place in Liverpool. However, the day featured a couple of outstanding individual performances from within the squad.

Angus Bowling attained a new personal best (PB) of 4.56m when winning the pole vault. The rapidly improving vaulter is now ranked third under 20 in the country. He also competed in the triple jump in which he placed seventh

Louise Hirst, who is in the top 20 under 20 triple jumpers in the national rankings, won the competition at Liverpool with a distance of 10.59m. Hirst also scored valuable long jump points with a fifth place finish.

Simon Achurch secured third place in the hammer and shot, with Andrea Jenkins finishing third in the ladies hammer, with a throw of 43.64m, and fourth in the discus.

Alex Ingham placed fourth in the javelin, while team captain Dave Bush competed in five events, with his best effort a fourth place in the B javelin.

Alexa Boole was fourth in the ladies B 400m, while James Marsh ran a 22.92 200m PB for fifth

Phil Martin tackled three track races, and ran a 9:20.47 3,000m for sixth place.

Jennifer Smith was sixth in the ladies B 200m as was Nicola Gibson in the 800m, Elizabeth Taylor in the 400m and Katie Marsh in the B 100m.

Alastar Phelan doubled up in the 400m and 800m placing seventh in both.