IT JUST GETS BETTER AND BETTER!

It's official - Trackspeed1 UK athletes are on fire this year, with another four lifetime best marks set tonight (Wednesday May 13th), and a new England Senior International christened just for good measure!

On a night that was supposed to feature athletes competing in preparatory low-key open meetings around London, three put down fastest ever marks over 100, 200 or 400 metres, just 24 hours after Emmanuel Stephens had celebrated his first senior international call-up.

Stephens was not in action, but is lined up not only to run the 100m in the Loughborough International meeting on Sunday, but also will represent England in the 4x100m relay in the same meeting.

His preparations for that occasion will be bouyed now as he sees several of his training partners improving their best marks at what is still a very early stage of the summer outdoor season.

Arguably the best of the bunch was from Dean Hylton, who clocked a massive personal best 21.76s 200m at an open meeting in Newham, with a zero wind.  That lopped over half a second off his previous best.  The 100m also saw improvement from an existing best of 10.76 to 10.70 (wind: +2.0) and 10.74 (wind +1.2) in the heat and final respectively.

Dean Hylton posted two lifetime bests at Newham

At the same meeting Oweka Wanogho didn't quite beat his fastest ever 100m, but he did run faster than he has since 2012, clocking 10.85 (wind +2.0) and 10.82 (wind +1.2).

Meanwhile 19-year-old Ishmael Smith-John cracked his personal best over the 200 metres timing 22.41 (wind -0.2) - a performance praised by coach John Powell:

"Ish' has worked as hard as any of the squad this last few months, despite not being one of the highest profile athletes, and this is now the beginnings of a reward for that graft, and I'm delighted for him" he said.

John had spent the evening at Battersea Park witnessing the opening Rosenheim League fixture, and saw one of his squad's PB's first hand.  Despite all sorts of injury issues over recent months, Nic Baker again improved his 400m time, clocking 50.24s, and decided to celebrate 30 minutes later by winning a 200m race in 22.47s (wind -1.1).

"It was a good night," said John Powell, who has still not collated all the results around the Capital from his athletes, "it's very early in the season, but that is a positive thing as we have a lot of work yet to do in order to really produce peak performances."

In action at the Loughborough International on Sunday will be Jason Hussain (200m), Tope Nuga (100m), Emmanuel Stephens (100m and relay), Matthew Threadgold (400m) and Dean Hylton (100m).