Dartford Harriers' James Chatt came back from the European Under 23 Championships in Amsterdam, proudly bearing gold and silver medals.

The 21-year-old was part of the Great Britain relay squad who sprinted to a magnificent win in the 4x400m event in a time of 3mins 5.24sec. He was also in the 4x100m relay team which won silver in 39.45sec.

James' medals mark the culmination of an exceptional season, in which he has been unbeaten in the Men's Southern League over 100m, 200m and 400m.

The National Under-23 Championships at Bedford at the beginning of July saw him establishing a new club record for the 200m of 21.2sec.

His 100m run of 10.58sec missed the existing record by just .08s. One week before that, Chatt broke the club's 400m record, timing 47.2s. at Richmond.

Chatt, who is doing a Business Studies degree at Loughborough University, has been coached by Brian Fagg for the last 10 years.

The Gravesend Grammar School pupil arrived at Dartford Harriers not convinced that he had any sprinting ability!

However, in his first competition, he won the Kent under-13 80-metre trials.

In 1997, he gained English Schools selection and the following year saw his first representative honours, when he ran for Great Britain in the 200m at Birmingham Indoor Arena.

Nor are his abilities limited to sprinting. Chatt became Kent under-20 Decathlon Champion in 1998, a discipline which involves 10 events spread over two days.

James Chatt performed his now customary sprint treble, winning the 100m in 11.3sec, the 200m in 22.6sec and the 400m in 50.3sec when the Harriers A-team arrived at Hillingdon last Saturday for the Southern League Division Two fixture.

The Harriers were minus most of their middle distance specialists, many of them had already made a commitment to run in the Dartford Half-Marathon the following day, but the weakened team did well to finish fourth, with some athletes trying to “fill in” the gaps. One was Mark Powell, who ran in the 800m, the 1,500m and the 5,000m.

Stephen Stapley won the triple and long jumps with leaps of 12.52m and 6.59m respectively, with Richard Nash winning the B-string pole vault with 3.20m. Dartford won the 4x100m relay in 45.5sec.

Second places were recorded by: Alex Lee (long jump, 5.99m & triple jump 10.92m); Chris Fox (A-string pole-vault, 3.20m); Richard Nash (B-string javelin, 43.07m) and Dave Kemp, 200m, in 24.0sec.

Meanwhile, the Harriers' walkers took part in the Alan Fair Trophy meeting in Coventry, where they finished second overall behind the host club.

In the under-17 and senior 3kms race, Natasha Fox was first in 17mins 32secs. Hayley Katsis was seventh in a personal best of 19:27, while Liz Harris, who came eighth, also recorded a best-ever time of 21:34.

In the under-15 2km race, Carly Tomlin came first in 11:52, while in the boy's event, at under-13 level, her brother Jack was also first in 12:26m. Matthew Harris came sixth in 13:01m, while for the under-15s, Richard Harris clocked a new personal best of 10:54.