Hampton's Ashley Bryant performed above his ranking when he finished second of the three Britons in the European junior championships decathlon championship in Novia Sad, Serbia.

Bryant started well with a strong 100m in 11.50 seconds into a headwind, a long jump of 6.59m and 12.87m in the shot put.

Modest performances in the high jump (1.80m) and 400m (50.01) then saw him end the opening day in 20th place.

He started day two strongly with a season's best 14.96 in the 110m hurdles to rise to ninth overall.

He followed this with another season-best in the discus of 39.72m but still slipped to 19th.

He was 18th after a 4.10m pole vault, then won his speciality, the javelin, with a throw of 64.21m to move up to 13th place before the final discipline, the 1,500m. A lifetime best of 4:42.83 lifted him to 10th place overall with 7,193 points.

He said: "If I hadn't had such a rubbish first day, I'd have been so much closer – today was great. I had an awesome hurdles, I hit loads and came away with a decent time so I know it's there.

"My discus was a season's best as was my pole vault and I did a PB in the 1,500m at the end of two day’s events.

"My coach and I wanted to come here and do better than my European ranking of 13th, which I did and, after such a bad first day, I'm pleased."

Sutton & District 18-year-old Kola Adedoyin, who clinched a place in the Euro junior championships team after winning the English schools senior boys triple jump title in Sheffield with a lifetime best of 15.63m, narrowly failed to make the triple jump final.

He leapt 15.39m into a stiff 2.1 metres per second headwind to failed to make the finalists by just 6cm.