PENDLE athletes Eleanor Markendale and James Blackburn were winners at the Lancashire Combined Events Championships held at Blackpool.

The fixture incorporated the Lancashire Schools and Lancashire County Championships and both of these athletes were eligible for both competitions. Eleanor, already an England Schools' International, was the winning senior girl in both classes with a huge margin of more than 1,000 points in the heptathlon. She set a personal best in four of the seven events and equalled her best in a fifth, inevitably setting a new mark in her overall score too.

She opened with a PB 15.8 seconds in 100 metres hurdles and never looked back. There were new levels of 9.42m in the shot, 25.7 seconds for the 200m and 27.46m in the javelin, and 5.70m for the long jump tied with her best.

Only in the high jump and the 800m did she fail to improve as she amassed 4642 points.

Hyndburn's Heather Donald was the runner up with 3572 points despite being beaten in every single discipline by Markendale, while Nicola Breaks, also Hyndburn, took fourth overall with 3266.

Breaks is studying at Loughborough University and isn't eligible for the schools competition, but she becomes the county champion in the senior women's class after her very first multi-events competition.

In the intermediate girls' heptathlon Blackburn Harriers' Holly Robinson and Holly Bleasdale were fifth and eighth in the school's competition, although Bleasdale was one position higher in the county standings.

She recovered well after a disaster in the very first race when she tripped over a hurdle and scored no points. Elizabeth Clarke from Pendle was tenth and eighth in the same age group.

The junior boy's pentathlon saw an exciting competition, with the top three in the county standings separated by a mere 20 points.

James Blackburn, from Pendle, just had the edge over Blackburn Harriers Oliver Aspden and Lee Carruthers but it was desperately close as 10 points equates to around a second in the 800 metres.

James was the pick of them in the long jump and shot, Oliver was superior in the 80m hurdles and the high jump while Lee shaded the others in the shot. In the schools competition they finished third, fourth and fifth.

The senior boys took part in the gruelling ten discipline decathlon, but Blackburn Harrier Etienne Sharrocks was up to the task as he finished second in both competitions.

He scored 3847 points and, like the other successful athletes in the schools' competition, he will be waiting to hear whether he has been included in the Lancashire Schools Team for the North West Schools Championships to be held at Stoke on the last weekend in June.

The team will be announced in the next week.