The eight-lane athletics track at Inverness leisure has closed for a £130,000 refurbishment.

To celebrate the start of works, two of the athletes who ran on the track when it first opened as a six-lane track 25 years ago came back to run the final lap.

Charlie Forbes, now president of Inverness Harriers, and Charles Bannerman agreed to do the final lap of honour in the company of two tv stars - Milo and Bella from the BBC's Tweenies.

James Martin, general manager, said: "The Queens Park track really is an integral part of the facilities at Inverness Leisure and I think both myself and the users of the track would recognise that through the dedication and commitment of our groundsman we have substantially lengthened the life of the track, otherwise these works would have been required much sooner.

"However we realise that in order to maintain a high level of service provision to the athletes the time has now come where refurbishment is the only option. I am extremely grateful to the funding received from Inverness Common Good Fund and Education, Culture and Sport in The Highland Council. It is through their financial commitment that we have managed to secure the necessary funding to allow the works to progress."

Charlie Forbes added: "Speaking on behalf of the Inverness Harriers members, we are all really excited about the developments at Queens Park and looking forward to getting back to our home ground to see some of the new improvements that the centre have built into the refurbishment specifications.

"We understand that the new track effectively has two home straights that the photofinish timing system can operate, which now means that for big Athletics events, we can actually choose which direction we will run on the track depending on the prevailing winds on the day. Being able to do this could really help some of our athletes develop their own standards and hopefully achieve some improved personal bests."

The track is scheduled to reopen on 10 August.

Photograph: Charles Bannerman, Milo, Charlie Forbes and Bella