CATERHAM School student Sam Talbot has taken his athletics career one step further with a tremendous battle to secure the national age group combined events title at Bedford.
The 15-year-old was competing as a U17 and the normal for this age group is the two-day octathlon, but England Athletics push their rising stars further in their quest to secure this prestigious national title.
Talbot's aim was to better Commonwealth Games silver medallist and training partner Ashley Bryant's U17 score of 5894.
Day one was a closely contested competition, with Talbot the overnight leader by just 87 points over Max Price of Stevenage.
Talbot gained wins and new personal bests in both the 100m and long jump, was able to maintain the top spot after third place in the shot put, and was thankful to drop just one place following a below par high jump.
The final event of the day saw Talbot take the lead with a blistering win in the 400m, more than three seconds quicker than Price.
"I was astonished with my 100-metre time, I had not run this event in a year and was hoping it would be around 11.30," Talbot, who is trained by Ian Grant, said.
"The trackside clock stopped at 11.08."
Day two saw Talbot set himself up well with an outstanding win in the 100m hurdles in difficult weather conditions.
Following a new lifetime best in the discus, Talbot led by just two points, extending this by a small margin of 27 points following the pole vault, which saw another new best in 3.30-metres.
Talbot lost the lead in the penultimate event, the javelin, throwing 37.84m to Price's leading throw of 45.10m.
However, Talbot's superior personal best over Price in the final event, the 1500m, meant all was not lost.
"I knew I had to beat Max by 15-seconds to win the competition," Talbot explained.
And the Surrey schoolboy did not disappoint and, pulled along by Tom Chandler of Central AC who had the faster time overall, Talbot secured the title, 155 points ahead of Price in second.
And with 5908 points overall, Talbot also bettered the score of his training partner Bryant achieved at the same age.
