WORLD Junior Championship hopeful Paul Allsopp threw a personal best of 67.11 metres to take the Northern under-20 title in Manchester.

Allsopp, 19, finished almost five metres ahead of the rest of the field and his distance was long enough to attain the IAAF qualifying standard for next month’s World Championships in Canada.

The City of York field ace is now hoping to make the team for Moncton by throwing the UK athletics standard of 69m at this weekend’s National AAA’s Championships in Bedford.

Giant Les Richards, meanwhile, continued his push for Commonwealth Games selection with a silver-medal winning performance of 17.12m in the senior men’s shot putt at the Northern Championships.

Scott Lincoln also finished second in the U20 shot with a throw of 15.16m while Chloe Smyrk took silver in the U20 discus (35.38) and came fourth in the javelin (31.65).

On the track, there were further podium finishes for Oliver Palmer – second in the U20 400m hurdles with 57.52 seconds – and James Buck, who was third in the U20 400m with 49.69s.

Elsewhere, Daniel Cheeseman was fourth in the U20 800m (1:56.96), Iain Lynn came fifth in the U20 5,000m (15:41.19), Ryan Buck eighth in the U20 1,500m (4:16.9), Helen Garnham ninth in the senior 1,500m (4:52.36) and James Palmer 12th in the senior men’s 1,500m (4:15.46).