SEVENTEEN-year-old sprint hit Jake Ness has continued his upward momentum with five huge strides in as many days.

The City of Salisbury runner has competed in the south of England indoor 400m championships at London’s Lee Valley arena, where he worked his way through a brutal succession of heats to reach the final. There, he went on to lay down a real marker to his rivals by taking the gold medal in a quick 50.26sec, becoming the champion at the distance, both indoors and out.

This success came hot on the heels of a cheque from the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund in recognition of his track successes so far and to help support his further advancement. Previous recipients include top internationals such as Iwan Thomas, Kelly Sotherton and Katherine Merry.

Then in the same series of remarkable events came two key selection honours; Ness will be running for England at the indoor meeting in Bratislava, Slovakia on February 1 and a fortnight later will line up at the British senior indoor 400m championships in Sheffield to compete against Olympic and Commonwealth alumni such as Martyn Rooney, Nigel Levine and Matthew Hudson Smith.

And to cap it all, this weekend the Salisbury athlete jet-sets to Albuquerque’s University of New Mexico to sign a five year athletics’ scholarship package, starting in August.

This will put him into the US national collegiate athletics’ association’s first division, opening up dream opportunities.