Although European Indoors 60m silver medallist Craig Pickering (University of Bath AC) was forced to withdraw, there were some sparkling performances on the opening day of the British Universities Sports Association (BUSA) Championships at the EIS Sheffield on Saturday 10 March.

Fresh from running two personal bests on her Norwich Union Great Britain and Northern Ireland debut at last weekend’s European Indoor Championships in Birmingham, Montell Douglas (Brunel) lowered the Women’s 60m Championships best three times while UWIC duo Scott Simpson and Gary White led the way in the field events with magnificent landmark Championships Best Performances.

Douglas, who went within a whisker of reaching the European final in Birmingham, reduced the Championships record every time she stepped onto the EIS track: 7.35 in the first round, 7.33 in the semi-final and 7.31 in the final.

Simpson won the pole vault title in the grand manner – by increasing the Welsh record to 5.42m, which takes him into second place behind Steve Lewis in this winter’s Power of 10 rankings, devised by UK Athletics and its governing partners in the sport to raise standards in every event in every age group in every region on the way to London 2012.

As if to underline that standards are shooting up, there was a magnificent triple jump a week after Phillips Idowu (Belgrave Harriers) and Nathan Douglas (Oxford City AC) took the gold and silver medals at the Europeans.

Gary White won with a landmark PB and CBP of 16.00m that makes him the fifth UK jumper to go that far already this year. Elliot O’Neill (also UWIC) finished second with 15.55m and John Carr (Stirling) third with a PB of 15.20m.

The Women’s long jump went to Norwich Union GB combined events international Phyllis Agbo (Cambridge) with 5.96m.

And the Men’s 60m was still classy and dramatic even after the withdrawal of Pickering, who sensibly did not risk a “slight niggle” he felt while warming-up.

In the absence of the gold and silver medallists from the Europeans, who are first and second in the Power of 10 rankings, the BUSA gold and silver medals went to the men who are third and fourth in the Power of 10 rankings.

Simeon Williamson (Middlesex) got a lightning start and won in 6.71 seconds, though he was being closed down by Ryan Scott (Bath), who clocked 6.73 six days after infuriating himself by getting disqualified from the European final.

The BUSAs resume at 9.30am Sunday 11 March.