CROYDON Harriers pair Shirin Irving and Joe Yarde struck silver in their hurdles races at the England Athletics U15/U17 Championships in Bedford last weekend, both rising to second in the UK rankings in the process.

Irving ran two personal bests in the U15 75-metre event, 11.16secs in her heat and 11.15 in the final, fractionally missing Jo Evans' club record for that age group, which has survived for 30 years.

Yarde missed gold in the U17 100m hurdles by a whisker, sharing a 13.18 time with the champion Jake Porter (Birchfield Harriers). He too was very close to the club record set in 1990 by Neil Owen.

The duo were among 10 Harriers who were in action in Bedford. Yarde's Trinity School colleague Elliot Safo made an encouraging return after injury to take U17 long jump bronze with his 6.82m leap.

Middle distance prospect Patrick Lucas finished a worthy fourth in the U15 800m clocking 2mins 5.4secs while Omari Carr-Miller maintained his run of good form with a strong U17 400m run for fifth in 49.79, his second sub-50secs effort.

In-form sprinter Cameron Smith was sixth in the U17 100m (11.04) as was Kertis Beswick in the U15 80m hurdles which he ran in 12.01.

Mark Plackett improved to 4:45.55 in the U17 1500m steeplechase for a well earned seventh and triple jumper Sheldon Brown cleared 13.30m to place 10th.

Croydon Harriers veteran Ian Wright threw off injury problems with a vengeance to win the Slough Black Park 5k in 18mins 21secs.

Entries are being taken online for the Lexus Croydon 10k which will take place on October 10, starting at 10.10am. See the Croydon Harriers website for details.