Bobby Clay was ecstatic after putting her injury nightmare behind her to set a new Personal Best time at the Loughborough International Athletics on Sunday.

The Wingham star - who turns 18 on Tuesday - was competing for the GB & NI Juniors team in blustery conditions but stormed to a finish of 4mins 15.85secs to finish third, three seconds behind European and Commonwealth finalist Jess Judd - running for Loughborough University - and second-placed GB international Alison Leonard (4.13.23).

Clay’s time - which beat her previous best of 4:16.41 set at the World Youth Championships in the Ukraine in July 2013 - was also inside the European Junior Championships qualifying standard ahead of the games in Sweden in July.

The Sir Roger Manwood’s School pupil, who runs for Invicta East Kent AC, suffered an injury plagued winter and only returned to the track in an open graded meeting at Watford earlier this month.

She said: “Four months ago I thought this was going to be impossible. It’s been slow and I’ve had to be patient, which is not a strong point of mine. It’s been a learning curve but definitely wearing the GB vest again made it worthwhile.”

Clay took up the running and led until the latter stages, admitting: “That wasn’t always the tatic.

“I thought the other girls were going to take it out a lot faster. I was hoping to sit on and sort of ride the train but it didn’t really turn out that way and I realised ‘we’re running too slow’ and we all wanted times so I thought I’m going to take it from here.”

Fellow Kent runner and Blackheath & Bromley AC star Shannon Hylton also recorded a PB to win the 200m match race in a stunning time of 22.94secs - almost a third of a second quicker than her previous best time.

The 18-year-old said: “I’m so happy. I knew I could do it, but I didn’t expect to run a 22 so early in the season.

“I knew I had to get out hard because I had Margaret Adeoye (100m winner) and Charlotte McLennaghan on the inside but I’m so happy with that.

“I went to the World Juniors last year and did well, but I had a slight injury last year and it was annoying because you wonder ‘what if?’

“This is a new season and I am so happy. It’s hard because there’s so many top female sprinters at the moment. Just to be among them would be such a good achievement.”

Hylton was also part of the victorious 4x100m relay team for GB & NI juniors while her twin sister Cheriece was part of the 4x400m winning team for GB.

Bobby, Shannon and Cheriece are among 34 athletes supported by the British Athletics Futures Programme 2014/2015, which provides targeted support to athletes and their coaches.