The 17-year-old’s 1:45.36 improves a 33-year-old UK mark

Max Burgin’s British under-20 record of 1:45.36 in the 800m highlighted a superb weekend of action at the England Athletics Under-23 and Under-20 Championships in Bedford.

With an incredible display of front-running, the 17-year-old went through the bell in 52.02 and went on to break the 33-year-old UK junior record of 1:45.64 held by David Sharpe.

WATCH: U20M 800m final on runjumpthrow.com

After clocking a UK under-18 best of 1:46.80 in Loughborough last weekend, Burgin’s improvement was nothing short of sensational as he went to seventh on the world under-18 all-time rankings.

The European youth champion, who goes top of the UK 800m list overall for 2019, was one of several athletes to book their places on the team for either the European Athletics Under-20 Championships in Boras or European Under-23 Championships in Gavle, both taking place in Sweden next month.

Burgin, who will surely go to Boras as favourite, said: “I thought last week’s time was great and I just smashed that, so I’m very happy. I wasn’t expecting to run that fast – I did want a PB and that was my target going into the race.”

Morgan Lake retained her under-23 high jump title, happy to improve on her recent season’s debut performance with a 1.92m clearance. The former world junior champion had three failures at a would-be championship record height of 1.95m.

“I’m really happy,” Lake told the BBC. “I’m happy with the title. Not too happy with the height but still a progression from how I jumped last week… I think the big jumps are there.”

Adam Hague set a season’s best and meeting record of 5.55m as he secured his berth for Gavle with a win in the pole vault.

UK senior No.1 Harry Hughes duly secured the javelin title and his place in Gavle, although he was unhappy with his winning distance of 74.57m.

Callum Wilkinson opened up day two in Bedford with a championship best and PB of 40:29.32 in the 10,000m walk. Tom Gale’s 2.25m to win the high jump equalled the championship best.

Another championship record went to Amber Anning, who clocked 52.54 in winning the under-400m, going to fifth on the UK all-time junior rankings. Jacob Fincham-Dukes, who already has the Gavle standard with 8.00m, equalled the champion best in the long jump with 7.75.

Almost unnoticed just after Burgin’s exploits, Spencer Thomas used the same lead-from-the-gun tactics to clock a meeting record of 1:47.31 in the under-23 800m.

Shemar Boldizsar went to second on the European under-23 rankings for 200m with his PB-setting win of 20.65.

Naomi Ogbeta, currently ranked fourth under-23 in Europe, took her sixth consecutive England Athletics age-group title with 13.67m.

European age-group No.1 Alastair Chalmers, who last weekend improved his UK under-20 best to 50.07, clocked 50.58 to gain selection for Boras.

Another of those securing places for the Under-23s was Kristal Awuah, who completed a sprint double in winning the 100m in 11.61 into a headwind of 2.5m/sec, and the 200m in a PB of 23.24.

Thrower Divine Oladipo also successfully doubled, her 15.92m in the shot proving enough for Boras selection, while she also threw 51.28m in the discus.

Temi Ojorah, with a windy 13.08m in the triple jump and a high jump PB of 1.80m, also took home two golds.