Colchester Harriers were well represented at this year's National Combined Events Championships, held at the Alexander Stadium in Birmingham.

Kaneesha Johnson and Catherine Holdsworth returned with more national medals for the club, after two days of hard competition.

Johnson excelled in moving out of her age category, competing in the under-20 age group despite still only being under-17.

She came home with a silver medal and massive personal best (PB) score, won against athletes older than herself.

Holdsworth also amassed a new personal best score after battling against the pain of an arm injury, which threatened her being able to throw.

Johnson's score was put together with a new PB of 14.56 seconds in the 100 metres hurdles - the fastest under-20 time of the opening day - a high jump of 1.63m, a shot putt of 9.38m and she finished with a 25.18s clocking in the 200m.

That gave her a first-day score of 3031.

Holdsworth's first day started with a 14s 100m hurdles time that would have been so much faster had she not hit the fifth hurdle and interrupted her stride.

The high jump saw a 1.60m clearance, the shot was putt out to 11.65m and she also finished day one with a fine 25.28s 200m for a score of 3,180 points.

Day two began with a 5.65m jump in the long jump for Holdsworth, closely followed by a painful javelin throw that amazingly went out 38.38m.

She then finished the day in style with a massive PB of 2m 22.05s in the 800m to finish third with 5,356 points.

Johnson, meanwhile, consolodated her second position with a 5.42m long jump, a 27.49m javelin throw and she also finished with a superb 2m 23.28s 800m run to finish second with 4,916 points.

Both girls should now be selected for a GB international to be held in July in Ashford.

Also in Birmingham was decathlete Michael Holden.

He had a mixed weekend, after struggling to make it to the championships after weeks of injury.

He started with a new PB of 11.22s in the 100m, long jumped 6.45m, putt the shot out to 12.44m, high jumped 1.82m and ran the 400m in 51.7s to finish day one in fourth place.

On day two, he ran 14.73s in the 110m hurdles, threw 35.97m in the discus but then had problems in the pole vault and had to retire from the competition, placing third.