middle distance honours at the National Track and Field Championships.

In front of an enthusiastic crowd at the National Sports Centre, Couper followed up her triumph in the female open 800 metres on Saturday with another comprehensive victory in the 1500 metres yesterday.

Couper said: "I'm really happy with the way I've run. I ran two minutes, 14.4 seconds for the 800 and before that my personal best was 2:20.'' In the 1500 metres, Couper clocked 4:37.9, shaving more than a second off her previous best and well inside the CAC Games qualifying standard of 4:45.

The 21-year-old University of Vermont student, who has been training hard since March, felt there was still plenty of room for improvement.

"I've been training pretty well, for at least two hours a day, and realistically, I think I should try to run two or three seconds faster than I've done today,'' she added.

Couper now hopes to run in this summer's CAC Games in the Bahamas.

National track and field coach Gerry Swan was delighted with Couper's performance and said there had been plenty of other fine efforts from which he could take encouragement.

"What I am looking at as a coach is the number of good performances from the 14 and 15-year-olds, who have surpassed Carifta Games qualifying standards and there have been many fine performances,'' said Swan.

Sisters Shardae and Shay-la Whitter both performed superbly in the 1500 metres. Shay-la won the girls under-14 title with a time of 5:23.1, trimming an amazing 25 seconds off her previous best, while Shardae won the under-17 title in 5:09.7.

Swan also praised Gabriel Wilkinson, who won the under-20 discus competition easily, with a throw of 40.78 metres, though he was unsuccessful in his bid to beat Dilton Woodley's 20-year-old national record of 45.14.

Sprinter Bobby Green enjoyed a fine championship, winning the open titles in both the 100 and 200 metres events.

In the 200, his time of 21.0 seconds was enough to edge out Xavier James by seven tenths of a second and James pushed him even harder in the 100, Green winning in 10.5 to James' 10.7.

Richard Walcott enjoyed emphatic victories in both the 800 metres and 1500 metres at under-17 level, while the long jump produced a remarkable effort from Natasha Simmons, whose leap of 4.23 metres won the girls under-12 title and was also the best effort of the day by a female.