Hampton schoolboy Ashley Bryant got a taste of what faces him next year when he decided to end his 2007 summer season by moving up an age group.

He faced up to the challenge well and finished second overall out of eight competitors in an open junior decathlon competition at Milton Keynes, winning the Middlesex title in the process.

Although only 16 and competing against athletes more than a year his senior, Bryant, who goes to Halliford School, Shepperton, started off well by winning the 100m and long jump with 11.7 seconds and 6.46m respectively, to lead the contest at that stage.

He temporarily surrendered the lead with a fourth-placed finish in the shot with 12.28m, and equal third in the high jump with 1.74m, but then bounced back to win the 400m in 51.7 to hold a 30-point advantage at the end of day one.

He started the second day by taking second place in the hurdles in 15.6, third in the discus with 36.49m, the first time he had thrown the heavier 1.75kg implement, and equal fourth in the pole vault with 3.70m, adding 10cm to his previous best clearance.

He also threw a personal best 52.34m in the javelin, an improvement of 84cm, and then finished fourth in the 1500m in 5:12.4.

His final points tally of 6,276, an impressive improvement of 1,912 points on his only previous junior decathlon school 12 months earlier at Eton, would have ranked him ninth among UK juniors this year and, with the top five all moving up an age group in 2008, Bryant can look forward to Olympic year with some confidence.

This weekend, he starts his winter training in earnest, with some conditioning and indoor technical work.

Meanwhile, Herne Hill's Thomas Ashby finished fourth in his first junior decathlon competition with 5,985 points, while his younger brother, Blade, won the boys' U15 pentathlon with 2,554 points, a 76-point improvement on the score he achieved in winning the Surrey title at Crawley last month.

St Mary's Richmond's Paul Derrien was fifth in the senior decathlon, finishing with a total of 4,043 points.