ATHLETES with Pitreavie AAC landed a golden treble as a national event made its comeback.

More than 700 athletes travelled to Aberdeen for the 4J Studios Scottish Athletics U13/U15/U20 Championships, and the club's runners returned home with three gold, two silver and six bronze medals.

It was the first time in more than two years that the national event had been held because of COVID-19, and competitors from Pitreavie, who at the weekend were named Track and Field Club of the year at Scottish Athletics' 4J Studios Annual Awards, made the most of it by producing some superb performances.

Two of their gold medals came for Bruce Robb in the field, in the under-15 boys' discus and shot put.

In the former event, he threw an astonishing 41.03 metres to finish almost 11m ahead of his nearest rival, Rory Stainsby, of Inverness Harriers, while he also threw 12.71m in the shot put, showing great consistency with a number of throws over the 12m mark.

Bruce's achievements saw him follow in the footsteps of his father, Bruce senior, who won both of these titles in 1992.

On the track, Harris Mackie, son of 1996 100m Olympian, Ian Mackie, ran a superb race in the under-15 boys' event over that distance to take the title with a PB of 11.45 seconds, displaying superb form by dipping at the line to pip Edinburgh AC's Rory Brogdan by just 0.04 of a second.

Mia Fairweather, in her first year as an under-13 athlete, showed her maturity and versatility to take a field silver and track bronze, in the shot put and 200m.

In the former, her throw of 7.92m was just two centimetres behind event winner Niamh Pegrum, of Cumbernauld AAC, while a time of 28.03 gave her third spot in her run.

Lily Simon, an under-15 athlete, took third place in the 800m in a time of 2:19.43 – just 0.05 of a second behind second-placed runner Millie McClelland – to take her to number one in Scotland in her age group.

Steve Doig, who coaches Paralympic champion, Owen Miller, trained four of the top five girls in the final, including Lily and clubmate, Ariane Baillie, who finished fifth after switching her focus more this year to 800m from hill- and cross-country running.

There was also a bronze medal for another under-15 competitor, Lewis Muir, who competed at his first Scottish nationals alongside younger brother Fraser, as he jumped a PB of 4.67m in the long jump.

The medals continued to flow in the under-20 category, with Erin Macfarlane – in her first year as an under-17 – Rebecca Grieve and Sarah Duff being the recipients.

In a close finish with training partner Sarah Coutts, of Fife AC, a PB of 4:42.02 brought Erin a fine silver medal in the 1500m, which was added to with a bronze in the 800m, thanks to a time of 2:13.49 that was just 0.04 of a second off another second place.

Rebecca, with a new best time of 12.14, collected bronze in the 100m while Sarah, who earned a Scotland under-20 vest recently, won the same colour of medal in the 200m thanks to a PB of 25:02.

l Last week, in our report on Pitreavie's success at the National Relay Championships, it was brought to our attention that one of the competing athletes, Sophia Mackie, had been named Sophie incorrectly. We apologise for this error and are happy to correct it.