Edge Hill's Lap of Honour!

It?s official ? Edge Hill has the best university athletics team in the North of England!

The institution?s 23-strong team out-jumped, out-ran and out-threw most of the 80 universities competing in the BUSA Outdoor Athletics Championships in Birmingham, to finish joint sixth overall in the men?s events and 11th in the women?s.

Of the 13 Edge Hill students who made it into their individual finals, Michelle Sharrock picked up Gold in the pole vault with a personal best of 3.80m, Dave Readle scooped Silver in the shot put, Rob Berry grabbed Bronze behind two international runners in the 3000m steeple chase and the men?s 4 x 100m relay team ? consisting of Readle, Mike Zaim, Stephen Butterfield and Mikail Huggins ? also won Bronze.

So impressive was Edge Hill?s performance that UK Athletics referred to the university as BUSA?s 'up-and-coming? team on its website.

Edge Hill athletics team Co-captain and Coach Dave Street said: "While we don?t have a specialist athletics performance centre, the sport is a growing area at Edge Hill and we have some outstanding facilities that our students are clearly making the most of to improve their performance levels.

"For both the men?s and women?s teams to finish higher than any other Northern university is a great feat in itself and all the students can be really proud of their efforts."

Indeed, it wasn?t only local institutions that Edge Hill showed a clean pair of heels to ? the men?s team even ranked higher than Oxford and Cambridge who finished in eight and ninth spot!

"We went into the championships with high hopes but I doubt anyone expected us to fare so well. We?ve substantially improved on last year?s results and the challenge now is to consolidate our standing in the athletics by winning even more medals next year."

In a bid to strengthen their athletics team further still, Edge Hill are inviting sponsorship from local business and organisations ? call Dave Street on 01695 584878 for more details.

Picture: Team Edge Hill celebrates its athletics success.