TAVISTOCK AC now have an impressive three athletes inside the UK’s top eight in the under-16 boys’ 1,500m rankings after Thomas Hennessey and Luke Scott-Tucker both smashed their personal bests at the BMC meeting at Exeter on Tuesday night.

Their team-mate Freddie Whybrow had already moved up to second in the rankings after he ran 4:02.70 the previous week at the BMC meeting at Milford.

But that appeared to have inspired Hennessey and Scott-Tucker to both lower their marks over the metric mile.

Hennessey finished third overall in the men’s A race and was first under-16 with a 4:03.42 run, which ranks him fourth in the UK, while Scott-Tucker ran 4:08.19 in the same race, which ranks him seventh in the country.

No other club even has two athletes in the top 20, let alone three in the top eight.

Also in the 1,500m at the Exeter BMC event, City of Plymouth senior David Weir ran 4:08.33, while under-16 club colleague Finley Eales finished in 4:34.97.

In the 800m, City of Plymouth’s under-16 athlete Taylan Jones ran 2:09.46.

Not too many athletes from the region made the long trip to Braunton on Sunday for the second round of the Devon Open Series.

However, there was a victory in the under-20 and senior women’s javelin event for Tavistock’s Evie Palmer, who threw 33.50m, while City of Plymouth’s Orla Findlay won the under-14 75m and 200m hurdle events in 15.10 and 36.30 seconds and club colleague Harper Linney-Goodall took victory in the under-12 long jump with 3.38m.

Meanwhile, City of Plymouth discus thrower Nubia Evans-Shields has qualified to compete in the first round of the NCAA Championships, which will take place on Friday in Kentucky.

Evans-Shields, competing for Delaware University, qualified for the East region round by smashing her PB with a throw of 51.56m to finish fourth at this month’s Conference USA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. That broke her PB by three metres and ranks the talented 19-year-old fifth overall in the UK.

At the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Championships, Tavistock Run Project’s Oliver Smart picked up valuable points for the University of Georgia by finishing eighth in the 10,000m in 29:55.10. The week before, Smart had shown his speed by running 4:01.79 for the mile.

Former Ivybridge Community College pupil Will Battershill opened his season over the 3,000m steeplechase barriers by clocking 8:30.01 at the IFAM Outdoor meeting in Belgium, while City of Plymouth Rory Summers set a season’s best time of 48.29 seconds over the 400m at the Stratford Speed GP Series at the weekend.