One of Great Britain's most promising junior middle distance runners, Lewis Moses of Darlington Harriers & AC, has received a special award after smashing a 30-year-old club record.

 

Lewis beat coach Paul Harker's 30-year-old 1500m record by one-and-a-half seconds at a British Milers Club meeting at Sport City. Manchester, recently. And Paul was so impressed he ordered a commemorative trophy for the talented Loughborough University student.

 

Remarkably, Paul - a former Darlington 10k record holder - was coached to his greatest achievements by Lewis's uncle, Miles Brown, who was at Eastbourne sports complex as three generations of the club's athletes gathered on the track to celebrate.

 

Lewis, 23, has long-term ambitions to represent Great Britain in the 2012 Olympics. But his immediate priority is to run for England at the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in October.

 

He has another chance to impress at the BMC meeting at Watford today (Sat) before the Commonwealth Games trial at Gateshead next month.

 

Paul has coached Lewis since he was a schoolboy, while at Loughborough his training is supervised by John Nuttall. He also receives advice from senior coach George Gandy, who was in charge of the group's altitude training trip to Font Romeu, France, recently.

 

Font Romeu is famous as the preferred training venue of world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe, who also studied at Loughborough.

 

"I am thrilled to bits that Lewis should be the athlete who beat my record," says Paul. "He is a dedicated young man who is a great credit to his sport."

 

Paul's long-standing record of 3 mins 44.2 seconds was lowered to 3:43.8 by Lewis, who will surely go on to even greater things in the months ahead.