VALE Royal Athletics Club’s Emily Lowery has been catching the eye with her performances.

She was one of three students from the club to compete in the recent British Universities and Colleges Indoor Championships in Sheffield, joining Sam Stephens (Leeds) and Raif Serif (St Mary’s, London) in action.

Stephens finished sixth in the third of the 800m semi-finals, while Serif was fifth in heat two of the 3000m.

Just over a week earlier Serif had ran the third fastest 5K of his young life, crossing the line in the PULS 5K in Battersea in 14:42, just seven seconds slower than the personal best time he recorded eight days earlier in Armagh.

But it was Cardiff University’s Emily who was the star of the show for Vale Royal in Sheffield.

Over three consecutive days, she came through her heat and semi-final to reach the 1500m final.

In an exciting race, Emily battled through to take a hard-earned bronze medal, beating her sister Katie (Leeds) in the process.

Emily went into that event on the back of a strong performance in the UK Indoor Championships which took place in the Utilita Arena in Birmingham.

There were some very exciting middle distance races to enjoy over the two days and many new personal bests were recorded, with Emily being one of those who achieved that feat in the first of two 1500m heats for women.

The race, won by Katie Snowden, saw seven personal bests and unfortunately for Emily her new PB of 4mins 27.11secs was 10th fastest over the two heats and she missed out on the nine-woman final by a quarter of a second.

Nevertheless to knock over four seconds off her PB was a remarkable achievement.

Elsewhere, Vale Royal’s Tessa McCormick improved her half marathon personal best by well over six minutes in coming second at the Wokingham Half Marathon.

This puts Tessa second on the club’s all-time ranking, just 13 seconds behind Nicky Archer in top spot.

Four of the club’s athletes competed at the Hale 10K with some success.

Ben McIntosh was second overall and both Anna Begbie and Debbie Broad were first women home in their respective VF40 and VF55 age categories.

Simon Prescott came home 465th.