A TRIO of Pitreavie AAC athletes have gone on the run to track success across the pond – with two of them breaking Scottish records.

Commonwealth Games bronze-medallist Nicole Yeargin, European Under-18 Athletics Championships women's medley relay winner Rebecca Grieve, and Billy Doyle competed at different events across the United States on January 21.

There were podium positions for all three and, for Nicole and Rebecca, they also collected new national bests in their respective events.

University of Southern California graduate Nicole, 25, chose to represent Scotland, and Great Britain, despite being born in the USA because of her mum, Lynn, who is from Dunfermline originally.

The Maryland native, who represented Team GB at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021, and helped them to 4x400 metres relay bronze medals at both the European Athletics Championships and World Athletics Championships last year, before winning another in the same event with Team Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, was in indoor action at the World Athletics Indoor Tour, American Track League Hawkeye Pro Classic event, in Iowa.

Nicole, who was one of 66 athletes put forward to the funded UK Athletics Olympic World Class Programme for 2022/23, finished first in the women's 300m with a new personal best time of 36.89 seconds, which is also a new Scottish best, improving on the previous effort of 37.57 set by Lee McConnell in 2005.

Elsewhere, Rebecca was also setting a new 300m best for her age group – overtaking a national record held jointly by a former West Fife track star.

The 17-year-old, who has undertaken an athletics scholarship at the University of New Mexico, took part in the Dr Martin Luther King Junior Collegiate Invitational, held in Albuquerque.

In the under-20 race, she ran to victory in 38.81 seconds, a new Scottish best time, eclipsing the previous record of 39.8, a time posted by former Dunfermline Track and Field star Gemma Sharp, who two years earlier had become Scotland's youngest athlete to compete at a Commonwealth Games aged just 16, in 2004, and by Evelyn McMeekin 30 years previously.

Speaking to Press Sport after her European success, Rebecca, who has aspirations to compete at the Olympics and World Championships in the future, said of her decision to go to the University of New Mexico, where she is studying biology: "There was a few other ones on the table but the University of New Mexico gave me an offer quite early, and it was a full scholarship, and the track team and the coaches seem really nice.

"You obviously want to go somewhere where you feel like you get along well with everyone. They felt very friendly, and a good community, so it was the best option."

In addition, Billy, who in 2020 began a scholarship at Princeton University, where he is studying geography and politics, ran to a third place in the Navy Wesley A Brown Invitational.

Held in Annapolis, Maryland, the 21-year-old ran a season's best of 48.91 in the 400m.