Birchfield Harrier Michelle Thomas broke new ground when she convincingly won the Warwickshire senior women's 400metres hurdles title at Pingles Stadium, Nuneaton.

The 33-year old won a Commonwealth Games 4x400m relay silver medal for England seven years ago in Kuala Lumpur but has taken up the one-lap hurdles event in recent times. Her winning time of 58.5 seconds by coincidence not only bettered Alison Curbishley's nine-year-old championshipbest performance, but was a significant improvement of

1.3 seconds from her careerbest. This performance earned Thomas the Jack Hartley Trophy for the best performance of the championships.

The 18-year-old Commonwealth youth double-gold medallist Julian Thomas moved down in distance to win the Under-20 men's 100m sprint title by half-asecond in a time of 11.2 seconds, running into a strong headwind of 3.2 metres per second.

Lee Carey, from host club Nuneaton Harriers, provided clear evidence that he can translate his good form over the cross-country on to the track.

The 16-year old, who won the Inter Counties and English Schools' titles this year, looked impressive when he won the Under-17 3,000m crown by 47seconds in a time of 8:43:2 and will aim to complete an English Schools' double in July.

Jade Surman achieved an Under-17 javelin record of 37.15m and just got the verdict in the 200m final when she and Tamworth's Meghan Beesley clocked 25.8secs.

A successful combined Championship with Leicestershire concluded with an enthralling 5,000m race. Midland cross-country champion James Walsh led for most of it and took the Warwickshire title in a personalbest time of 14:38:4, but the contest and Leicestershire crown went to Somali runner Moumin Geele by 0.6secs.