Harrow AC hammer thrower Charlotte Payne and Birchfield Harriers’ high jumper Charlie Husbands have been named as male and female Athletes of the Match following the first fixture of the 2026 National Athletics League (NAL) Premiership season in Derby.

NAL Athletes of the Match are awarded a monetary prize of £125 and are presented with a glass trophy.

Three-time UK hammer champion Payne threw a best of 70.10m, achieving 1095 points according to World Athletics scoring tables, which are the measure by which performances are ranked.

The European under-23 silver medallist has also thrown 71.92m this year in Eton in April and recorded her personal best distance of 72.51m when competing as a guest at the same venue in 2023.

Husbands, 24, cleared 2.21m to beat Harrow’s Divine Duruaku, the athlete who he jointly-won the UK title with last year. That scored 1099 points, nine more than the 7.78m performance from Thames Valley’s Archie Yeo, which won the long jump at Moorways Stadium.

In the Championship division, which is spread into four regional groups, the Athletes of the Match are Blackheath and Bromley’s Charlotte Henrich and City of Portsmouth’s Vojtech Berger.

Henrich, the reigning European under-20 400m champion, won the 200m in 23.55s with Berger sealing top spot over the same distance with a personal best of 21.15s. That secured respective scores of 1080 and 1048 points.

Both performances at the Championship South match in Crawley were part of double victories, with Henrich also getting a 100m victory in a lifetime best of 11.60s.

Berger – a recent British Universities 100m bronze medallist – won the long jump by leaping out to 6.97m.

Full ranking lists and results from all five matches can be found here on OpenTrack, while full reports can be found along with the latest news here.