JOSEPH Keane continued his superb start to the season with a scintillating personal best in the triple jump at the Team Bath Field Fest on Sunday, writes KEVIN FAHEY.

Despite heavy rain making the runway very difficult the Bradford on Avon teenager, who is a student at St Laurence School, smashed his PB by over a metre as he soared to 11.66m in the under 17 men’s triple jump, easily eclipsing his 2017 best of 10.64m.

Keane’s triple jump success comes hot on a PB in the U17s long jump at the Yate Open meeting clearing 5.45m – beating his previous best of 5.02m which he set just the previous week at the Mark Cawte Memorial Open in Swindon.

“Joseph has been in my sprint training group for the past year but has shown interest in the jumps and has had a great start to the season,” said coach Julie Alexander.

Keane’s success was undoubtedly one of the highlights of the annual Field Fest staged at Bath University but on the whole performances were below par due to the conditions.

“We had a record amount of entries and despite the forecast and conditions 150 athletes still turned up on the day but there were very few personal bests,” said organiser Di Viles.

“In the jumps the sand was so wet and horrible that most of the athletes didn’t even bother taking all their jumps and cut short their competition.

“A lot of athletes, who return here year after year, came up and asked me what happened to the weather as normally we have a great day but even we can’t control that!”

There was a decent high jump competition with team-mates Jude Brotherwood, from Trowbridge, and Hilperton’s Rory Howorth both clearing 1.80m.

For novice Brotherwood, who only started jumping two years ago and has competed rarely, that was a PB by 10coms while for England international all-rounder Howorth the jump was only 3cms off his lifetime best.

“It was a really good battle between the pair and they were the only two jumpers left in the competition at the end,” added Viles, who also coaches Brotherwood.

Sheldon School’s Jake Burkey has a PB of 6.78m so 6.49m in the conditions to finish win the senior men’s long jump was a very good effort in the circumstances.

Devizes School teenager Will Scammell cleared 5.39m, well below his best of 5.90m, but rookie Ben Game managed to squeeze out a small PB of 5.10m.

In the long jump Team Bath teammates Eleni Francis and Ebony Hammond both cleared 4.42m while Robyn Ellison only just missed her PB as she cleared 5.06m.

Becci Ousby, who is normally a five metre plus jumper, managed 4.63m in the long jump and 9.62m in the triple.

In the women’s event newcomer Megan Davies cleared an encouraging 1.50m and will surely go much higher as the season progresses.

In the throws Keelan Tucker recorded a PB of 30.89m in the javelin to win the B event and Felix Vaughan managed a PB of 31.95m in the hammer.

“Overall the performances were disappointing but I think in the conditions we put on as good a meeting as we could have done,” said Viles.

Representing Harvard University in the annual Harvard v Yale Universities match Box athlete Livia Gauntlett ran a season’s best of 25.80secs for second place in the 200m and then was also runner-up in the 100m hurdles clocking 13.86secs, just a fraction outside her PB of 13.80secs.