ELLEN RANKLIN continued her route to becoming a seasoned championship performer by winning a national bronze medal recently.

The talented Dunfermline Track and Field athlete, who picked up a third place at the Scottish Athletics National Combined Events Championships last July, delivered another at the Scottish Athletics National Indoor Senior and Under-17 Championships.

Held at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena on January 28, Ellen competed in the under-17 women’s high jump alongside clubmate Isla Steel and both girls jumped 1 metre 54 centimetres in the competition.

They were tied for third place alongside Falkirk Victoria Harriers duo Kerry Robertson and Rosie Sharples, and Mid Argyll AC’s Jodie Robertson, but Ellen – whose effort was also a new PB – took the medal on countback, with Isla placing seventh.

Ellen also enjoyed a PB of 10.19m in the shot putt – an effort that saw her go over 10m for the first time – and narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 60m hurdles final with a time of 9.97 seconds in her heat.

In her first year at under-17 level, Isla did extremely well to reach the 60m hurdles final, qualifying fourth in her heat before placing seventh in the final in 9.57.

Daisy Cumming, in her fastest race of the day, reached the women’s under-17 800m final, qualifying second in a heat time of 2:18.91 before placing fifth behind Pitreavie AAC’s fourth-placed runner Sarah Coutts in a time of 2:20.57.

Ruaridh Elder narrowly missed out on a place in the final of the men’s event as he finished third in his heat with a time of 2:08.18; Kieran McDonald produced a PB of 26.10 in the 200m heats; and Elliot Wilkins competed well in the 400m heats (58.02), finished ninth in the high jump (1.44m) and 11th in the long jump (4.88m).

With the exception of Ellen, all of the Dunfermline Track and Field athletes were first year in the age group and this bodes well for next year’s championship.

Meanwhile the club’s under-11 girls have qualified for the finals day of the Scottish Athletics Indoor League after the third event took place 24 hours earlier.

A few Dunfermline teams were in the hunt and the under-13 girls qualified comfortably for March’s finals day in second place and will be joined by the under-11 boys following clarification on qualifying criteria.

Despite a stunning performance by Mya McMahon, Megan Kyle and Ellie Candlish to finish second in the final match with their best score of the three, they just missed out after finishing fourth equal out of 26 teams but Mya broke the Scottish under-13 indoor record for long jump along the way with a distance of 4.83m.

That achievement means that she now holds Scottish indoor records for the under-13 long jump, high jump and pentathlon.

The under-13 boys also placed well and, despite a strong performance, finished seventh overall from 23 teams while the B teams in both under-13 groups did well to finish comfortably in mid-table.

In the under-15 girls’ competition, both Dunfermline teams performed admirably to place eighth and 10th respectively from 26 teams, while the boys – who only had two athletes competing – did superbly well to cover six events and finish 11th out of 21.

Minnie Brocklesby was the lone under-17 female competing but both of Dunfermline’s women’s sides finished mid-table, while the boys finished fourth in the match and in fifth place out of 20.