Four Borderers among 2025’s Royal Scottish Highland Games Association award-winners

Tweed Leader Jed Track’s Nina Cessford is the region’s only senior winner, landing the trophy for female veteran of the year.

The Borders’ other prize-winners are all Kelso youngsters, with Reece Jackson named as male youth athlete of the year and his sister Erin and Lucy Welsh sharing the girls’ version.

Glasgow’s Callum Letham and Forfar’s Angela Bell are respectively male and female athletes of the year.

This year’s award-winners were announced at a meeting of the association’s general council in Perth on Sunday and trophies will be handed out at a presentation dinner at the Laurel Bank Hotel in Markinch in Fife on Saturday, November 1.

That followed league placings being compiled following the 2025 season concluding with Fife’s Bowhill Highland Games on Sunday, September 14.

TLJT’s Scott Tindle was third on the male sprinters’ leaderboard, topped by Edinburgh’’s Allan Hamilton, and Peebles’ Samantha Turnbull and Cessford were second and third respectively on the female version, won by Glasgow’s Lorne Kerr.

Kelso’s Matty Fleming was third male runner for distances of 400m to 800m and Hawick’s Greg Walker was third for longer races longer than that, with Letham winning in the former category and Forfar’s Craig Bell in the latter.

Borders boys pulled off clean sweeps of top-four places for races of up to 400m and longer distances and their female peers weren’t far off.

Kelso’s Reece Jackson, Ben Nairn and Rory Fleming were first, second and fourth for races of up to 400m, with third place going to Innerleithen’s Stuart Whiteford.

It was much the same story for distance races, with Kelso’s Leo Tait and Harry and Rory Fleming first, second and third and Whiteford fourth.

Kelso’s Welsh, Erin Jackson and Evie Leonard, in that order, racked up a clean sweep of top-three places for girls’ races of up to 400m but fourth place went to Fife’s Paige Wilson.

Two of those three also took top-four places for girls’ distance races, Leonard as runner-up and Welsh fourth, with their Addie Gray Running School clubmate Martha Davies-Walker claiming another, third, and top spot going to Edinburgh’s Amber Cunningham.

Those nationwide league placings were accompanied by another lot just for games in Fife and Selkirk’s Colin Bruce was top of the one for races up to 400m – with Kelso’s Douglas Young second, Cessford third and Turnbull fifth – and Walker took pole position for longer races.

Kelso youngsters were within a whisker of a clean sweep in the league for youth races up to 400m, with Reece Jackson first, Nairn second, Rory Fleming third and Welsh, Erin Jackson and Edinburgh’s Maya Buchan sharing fourth place.

Hawick’s Greg Watson was top of the class for longer youth races, with Leonard sharing second place with Fifer Luca Anderson and Rory Fleming joint-fourth with Angus’s Jack Kidd.

Innerleithen’s Charles Fletcher was runner-up to Perth’s Paul Anderson in the nationwide cycling standings but pipped him to the post in the Fife-specific table.