ANNIE TESTAR opened her indoor season in rude health as she grabbed back-to-back victories at the Welsh National indoor Arena in Cardiff.

Testar, 17, who won the England Schools’ U19 800m title and represented England U18s, winning both the 800m and part of the winning 4x400m relay team in the summer, opened her indoor season in explosive fashion. She started her winning sequence in the 300m where she was seeded in the A race. Her lack of speed work showed as she was left at the start trailing in last place, but she worked her way onto the back of the field and made her move running wide off the last bend which led to an exciting three- way sprint for the finish to take a narrow victory with the last stride in 42.06s. This was followed by the 600m where she made a strong start and followed the pacemaker to 400m and held off the challenge from behind to romp home in 1min, 33.86s.

Meanwhile, Liam Dailey,17, made his debut indoors and at 3000m where he was seeded into the C race. Dailey ran strongly for 2k, but faded a little over the last 1k to finish in 9min, 27s.

Stroud AC coach Chris Brown said: “For both Annie and Liam it was a case of checking where they both are early in the indoor track and cross country season, both have a lot of work to do between now and February, but I was particularly pleased with Annie’s 300m although the time was modest, to be able to have the speed and strength to come back at quality sprinters late in the race at this stage of the winter is encouraging.”