ADAM Hoole (Team East Lothian) scooped a silver medal and second place in the all-time Scottish rankings in the EA English Athletics U20 Combined Events Championships in Bedford.

Following on from a successful indoor athletics season, Hoole scored 7,065 points over two days of competition, becoming only the third U20 Scot to break through the decathlon 7,000 points total.

The competition started with a personal best of 10.83s to win the 100m ahead of local favourite and eventual competition winner Sammy Ball (Reading AC).

Hoole continued his form into the long jump, winning with 7.08m before consolidating with another PB of 13.94m in the shot-put.

After a disappointing high jump of 1.8m, Hoole finished day one with another PB of 51.62s in the 400m for overall second place.

On day two, Hoole again produced the leading sprint time in the 110m hurdles of 14.24s and followed this with a PB in the discus of 40.89m.

With a gap of 150 points between the top two, it was important for Hoole to gain points back in the pole vault and, although he won the event in another PB of 4.20m, it was not enough to prevent Ball stretching his lead to 300 points over the last two events of javelin and 1,500m.

The winner’s 7,361 points were enough to earn automatic qualification for the GB U20 team for the World Championships in Colombia in August. Hoole, though delighted to gain a 650-point improvement in his overall score from last year, must wait and see if another opportunity arises before July to aim for the 7,300-point qualification mark.