THE Team Bath guys flew their national flags with pride as both John Howorth and Justin Davies made the podium at the Loughborough International.
Howorth, representing England, took the honours as he claimed a superb victory over 1500m in a time of 3mins 51.04secs in a hard-fought, tactical race that came down to a last lap battle.
Howorth, in only his fifth race of the year after injury, showed signs of the form that earned him a big breakthrough last season when he broke 3mins 40secs for the first time and also joined the sub four minutes mile club.
He did enough to hold off Scotland’s Stephen Mackay (3:51.35) with Davies, who was making his track debut for the Great Britain Under 20s team, a fine third in 3:51.50 as just 0.80secs covered the top five finishers.
Leading up to the race Davies had one eye on the time of 3mins 43.0secs which is the qualifying standard for the World Junior Championships in Colombia.
The previous weekend the Martin Rush coached athlete had smashed his personal best with 3:43.62 at the British Milers’ Club Grand Prix at Birmingham University but the Loughborough event was a different type of race with a greater emphasis on tactics and finishing position.
A recent leg injury has also curtailed his training but Davies appears to have recovered now and is pencilling in the BMC Grand Prix at Watford next month as his next bid to run inside 3mins 43secs.