ASHFORD Athletic Club rising star Nick Leavey from Kennington was in golden form at the English Schools national championships at a wet and windy Gateshead last week.

The Ashford runner again showed his huge potential to reach the top, winning the 400m gold in fine style and then also helping the Kent relay squad to gold.

The 17-year-old A-level student at Simon Langton School saw off the best in the country to win the senior boys 400m with a personal best time 47.78.

He ran a comfortable second in his heat with 49.6 to ensure he qualified for the final. He then helped Kent win the 4x100m relay title as well with 42.25.

Leavey, who leaves schools this year and hopes to study sports sciences at university, was delighted to get under 48 seconds for the first time this year.

“I was really pleased as I haven’t been running particularly well this year,” he said. It was a sweet moment for the runner coached by Canterbury’s Mike Mein as he just missed out on a medal in the 400m two years ago with fourth.

It was a pretty good day all round for the Ashford athletes with a bronze medal for pole vaulter Anne-Marie Price with a leap of 2.85m. It was well within her personal best but the conditions were not ideal for good vaulting.

Unlucky Duncan Adamson just missed out on his medal finishing fourth in the junior boys 400m while Ashford team-mate Will Allingham from Folkestone also did superbly to reach the final finishing a respectable seventh with 55.37.

The Thanet youngster gave it his all with 52.64 to get a national standard but was just run out of it in the straight missing out by 0.3 of second.

There was disappointment for the promising Becky Paine who struggled with an injury to complete her heat in the intermediate girls 300m with 44.70.

Folkestone’s rising javelin ace was eighth in the junior girls javelin with 29.56 but has the potential to go much further in future meetings and Hannah Hogben was eighth in the senior hammer with 36.43m.