Colchester cop shop boasts some of the best athletes in the country as Karen Wilson and Derek Walker proved at the Police Athletics Association National Track and Field Championships in Solihull, Birmingham.

Wilson, a civilian worker at the station, almost swept the board when winning two silver and two bronze medals, while Walker, an officer in the Colchester Divisional Intelligence Unit, pulled out all the stops to win a bronze.

Karen really did the business for Colchester in the field events.

Darting from event to event, she leapt to silver in the long jump with a personal best 5.20m and followed up with another pb in the high jump, clearing 1.45m.

She overcame a few niggling injuries while going on to gain the bronze medal in the javelin with a throw of 35.47m.

And with the field events completed she found time to grab another bronze with a time of 64.3 seconds in the Womens 400m.

Originally down to run in both the 200 and 400m, Walker rolled the dice and decided to drop the 200m.

His gamble paid off and after waiting most of the day to compete in the race he managed to squeeze every last ounce of speed he had to snatch the bronze medal at the death with a time of 52.5 seconds -- seperated only by 1/100ths sec ahead of a Met Police runner.

Colchester CID's Steve Gibbs was also in action for the Essex team in the National Tug of War Championships at the same meeting.

Gibbs won silver in the 720kg (total weight of team), plus bronzes in the 640kg; 680kg and Catchweight events.

There were other good performances from the Colchester police even though they failed to win anymore medals.

Trevor Clark threw magnificently in an enthralling javelin event, painfully missing out on bronze by only ten centimetres. He also found his rhythm in the shot and discus events, throwing further than before, but with little luck.

Copford's Steve King braved the soaring mid-day temperatures to take a deserved fifth place in the 3000m walk with a time of 16.30 minutes.

Multi-talented Duncan Rumblow showed up well to finish fifth in the 400m final and a distance of 5.52m in the long jump.

Colchester also came fifth in the men's medley relay, ran by Derek Walker, Trevor Clark, Basildon's Trevor Edwards, plus Duncan Rumblow.

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