Three rising young local athletes have each been rewarded for their fine efforts in championship races over the summer on the fells by winning places in their respective ‘four-strong’ England under-18 teams to contest this Sunday’s British and Irish Five Nations’ Junior International Championship.

Skipton Athletics Club’s Billy Pinder and Wharfedale Harriers’ Jonny Bradshaw have already worn the international vest with distinction this year when they were the first two home – in that order – to lead England to the team bronze medals at the World Youth Mountain Running Championship in Italy.

However, the emergence to England selection of Skipton Athletics Club’s Rebecca “Beccy” Lambson must rank as an ultra-special achievement.

Her own particular progress must surely have served as an additional spark of inspiration to people from whatever walk of life to fight that little bit harder when things are going badly.

A modest performer but forever a good, honest trier when first joining the local club as an 11 year old, Lambson was just at the point when she eventually started to dig into the higher order of some of the regional cross-country races when she was struck by a severe virus.

It almost completely immobilised her for months and, to lesser spirited souls, even a walk into Skipton High Street at that juncture would have seemed like a million miles away.

Step by step though, she tenaciously clawed her way back – first to school for limited durations and – after more than a year out – eventually to athletics training, where just a basic warm-up and a few modest strides comprised the maximum extent of her early attendances.

Slowly and cautiously her levels have been on the up and up ever since, and two other special milestones hitherto achieved this year, and which once would have hardly been a twinkle on the horizon, were her selection for Yorkshire at cross-country and her double county triumph and resultant English Schools’ Finals qualification on the track.

Lambson also won the last two rounds of the Fell Running Association English Junior Championship to clinch her England selection.

It is England’s turn to stage this Sunday’s championship, which is at Sedbergh, where Pinder and Bradshaw have already demonstrated their capabilities in handling the ultra-steep course up Winder, by finishing first and third respectively at last Sunday’s English Schools’ Championship.

Elsewhere in fell-racing, another Skipton AC teenager, Jimmy Craig – albeit too old for consideration for the Junior International Championship – nonetheless made a very favourable impression among the seniors when he finished runner-up amid an entry of 66, and collected some notable scalps into the bargain in the seven-mile Bowland Fell Race at Hodder Valley Show.