JERSEY sent a strong contingent of athletes to the second RBC Multi Events Championships at Foote’s Lane and won most of the trophies.

Of the seven age-group categories contested, Spartan won four as they again showed their strength in depth at junior level.

The visitors produced a clean sweep of the podium places in both under-15 categories, and provided the top two in the under-13 and under-17 girls as Lucy Crossman, Stephen de la Haye, Amy Dingle and Sophie Twinam emerged top of their groups.

Jersey’s highly-rated Callum Forrest had a real tussle with Michael Batiste before losing out by a mere 58 points.

The pre-event favourite, Forrest opened with an impressive 100m hurdles display which brought him a big haul of 528 points.

He also produced a fine 9.93 shot victory, but that was the last of his successes in the four-event competition.

The value of multi-eventing was highlighted by representatives of both clubs.

Andrew Winnie, Jersey’s athletics development officer, said the event was ‘a really worthwhile exercise’.

‘I’m really pleased that at this time of the season athletes like Lucy Crossman and Stephen de la Haye are producing personal bests, which shows they are really enjoying their sport.

‘Also, athletes get the chance to do events which they would not normally do and discover that they are actually very good at them.’ Rob Batiste, the GIAAC president, tempered his joy at seeing his son coming out on top with disappointment that Jersey are producing far more quality athletes in the technical events.

‘This has again demonstrated to me that while we have some very fine individual talent we do not have the depth of our Jersey friends.

‘Jersey provide the vast bulk of the CIAC junior girls squad and we need to do better on that score.’