Athletics Sparey delighted with his record 800m run in London

EWAN Sparey's glorious summer continues to gain momentum as he finally broke the 46-year-old Bristol & West AC Under-17s club record over 800m in London on Wednesday.

- Kevin FAHEY

Lining up in the C race at the British Milers Club Record Breaker meeting at Twickenham, Sparey carved 1.22secs off his previous PB with a time of 1 min 51.49secs.

Previously third fastest of all-time in the club's record books, that run eased the 15-year-old ahead of Dave Burden (1:52.70 in 1967) and Keith Bennett (1:52.30 in 1979) to be the undisputed No 1 in the history of Bristol & West AC and before then Bristol AC.

"I'm really happy with that," said Sparey. "I also believe, but I'm not certain, that it is also the second quickest time ever by a first year British Under-17 runner."

Stats aside, there is no argument with the quality of Sparey's performance as he improved his 800m PB for the fourth time this year. In 2024 his best stood at 1:59.22 and he opened the new year with 1:58.51 indoors.

Since then he has recorded 1:56.90 at the opening Bristol Track Nights meeting, then 1:52.81 at Birmingham University last month before this latest startling time.

"It was a great race last night, even though it seemed a bit too fast initially," added Sparey.

"The pacemaker led the field through in low 52 seconds and I was back in 53 seconds, which was a lot quicker than the 55/56 I ran at Birmingham University.

"It was much faster than I expected but I felt okay. Afterwards I looked back at a few little things I could have done better so there is more room for improvement but there will be no more 800m races now until the English School Championships. I'm really looking forward to that."

>> While Sparey was doing his stuff in south-west London, Bristol & West AC's next generation of young runners and some more mature -

were in action at the club's Bristol Track Nights at Whitehall, producing a fantastic 24 personal bests from 47 finishers across five 1500m races.