Records tumble

SARAH MERCIER lost her island 1,500m record at Footes Lane last night but still went home smiling.

Within half an hour of seeing Nat Whitty become the fastest Guernsey woman over the metric mile, clocking 4min. 29.0 to take almost three seconds off her personal best and finish well inside Mercier's time of 4-31.74 recorded in Solihull last July, the 22-year-old smashed her personal best for the 5,000m and in so doing comfortably ran inside the Commonwealth Games qualifying standard for Glasgow in 2014.

Mercier, coached by Lee Merrien, has been in superb form in recent weeks, and in a mixed race which brought the meeting to a close, she stripped nearly 38sec. off her previous best for the distance and became only the second local woman to duck under 17min.

On a great night for the island's elite women middle-distance runners, Katie Rowe also broke the island under-17 record, with a time of 4-34.0, a second-and-a-half improvement on her time run in Gateshead last July.