ATHLETES with two West Fife clubs rubbed shoulders with Europe's top stars on Friday - and ran home with national medals to show for it.

Members of Dunfermline Track and Field Club, and Pitreavie AAC, travelled to Glasgow's Emirates Arena to compete in the finals of the Scottish Athletics Indoor Relay Championships, which took place on the opening night of the European Athletics Indoor Championships.

Competitors of the calibre of Eilidh Doyle, Laura Muir and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the latter two winning gold medals in the process, and allowed Dunfermline's under-13 girls, and Pitreavie's under-15 girls 'A' and under-17 women's teams, the chance to mix with world-class athletes in the warm-up area.

They earned their places at the finals by coming through a qualifying event last month and Dunfermline Track and Field's quartet of Shayna Asamoah, Sarah Kane, Sophie Thomas and Aaliyah Adebisi enjoyed a night to remember.

Racing in a 4x200 metre discipline, they stormed to a superb second place finish and the silver medal, crossing the line in an unconfirmed club record time of one minute and 57 seconds, just behind race winners Giffnock North AC 'A' (1:55.89), and ahead of bronze medal winners VP-Glasgow AC 'A' (1:57.44).

A club spokesperson said: "It was an outstanding performance from the girls, especially since two of the team are first year under-13s."

Meanwhile, in the under-15 girls race, Sophie Wallwork led Pitreavie's challenge and handed the baton on to first year under-15 athlete Erin Macfarlane – more likely to race over 1500m than 200m – in second place after a superb opening leg.

A similarly fine run by Macfarlane kept her team in medal contention and, after another first year under-15, Holly Gordon, ran a strong third, she handed over to Scottish under-15 300m record holder Rebecca Grieve for the anchor leg.

Despite giving her all, the gap to second placed Edinburgh AC 'B' (1:47.70) was too much to breach, but they took home a well deserved bronze medal in a time of 1:48.76, which was an improvement on both their heat (1:50.53) and semi-final (1:49.77).

Beth Aitken, Skye Marshall, Abbie Chisholm and Danni Mauchlen then ran in the under-17 race and, in a hotly-contested race that saw winners Giffnock North break the national record, they ran well to better their qualifying time of 1:49.66 to finish sixth in a time of 1:49.47.