Braintree and District Athletic Club athletes were able to gauge their training progress at the South of England AA Indoor Championships.

They competed against some of the most talented under-15, under-17, under-20 and Senior athletes from this part of the UK.

Many of the Braintree athletes gained new indoor personal bests (PBs), final places and in one case, a silver medal.

Clarice Parrott took the honours for Braintree in the under-15 girls long jump.

She showed her true prowess by taking the lead in the opening rounds with a new PB leap of 5.05m.

This was 4cms further than her training colleague Sarah Prescott-Smith, from Colchester Harriers.

These two athletes remained first and second until the fifth round when their medal positions were downgraded to silver and bronze when a winning jump by another finalist of 5.07m sealed gold.

This was a remarkable achievement by Parrott so early in her training cycle and was just reward for all the hard work during her winter training.

For more on this story, see this week's Braintree and Witham Times.