THE Metaswitch Games at the state-ofthe- art Lee Valley Athletics Stadium, London is the centre stage for a fast-developing group of Salisbury athletes this weekend.

The thriving squad of 30 teenage runners, taking part in the traditional final track fixture of the season, are poised to compete at distances from 60m upwards.

Last year Salisbury fielded just eight athletes at the event.

“Over the past couple of years we’ve had to become more and more structured,” explains senior coach Lee Ness, father of sprint sensation Jake. “If we’re lucky we would have three coaches for 36 athletes on the sprint team covering long sprinters, short sprinters and hurdlers: a mix of male and female, ages and capabilities.

“Some train four times a week, some twice, and many also do strength and conditioning training twice a week.”

When Ness recently introduced extra stringent training and testing sessions designed to whittle down the size of the group, he was surprised to find the number of young athletes committing to his programmes at a high level actually grew instead. To cope with the expansion, additional coaches are now being recruited and trained as results are already plain to see.

Salisbury athletes now feature among some of the best in their age groups anywhere in the country and there is little doubt that further success lies ahead.