RORY Howorth’s international debut for England at the British & Irish Schools’ Combined Events Indoor Championships will be one that he will remember forever.

The 14-year-old Team Bath athlete from Hilperton, near Trowbridge, won an under 16 team gold medal and an individual bronze medal at the Irish National Indoor Athletics Arena in Athlone, Ireland.

“The standard of competition was incredibly high, as you would expect at an international multi-event competition,” said proud mum Caroline Howorth, who travelled with husband Fraser and Howorth’s coach Julie Alexander to offer support.

“England, Wales, Scotland and the whole of Ireland fielded their strongest teams selected from their respective regional and national selection events.”

Howorth and his England colleagues dominated the under 16s competition, with Dominic Ogbechie (Highgate Harriers) taking gold with a championship-record score of 3,731points.

Theo Adesina (Thurrock) secured silver with 3,420 and Howorth completed the England clean sweep with 3,160 points, an improvement of more than 200 points from his previous best set at the English Schools’ Championships, in Exeter, in September.

“I am absolutely delighted with my medal and performance,” said Howorth.

With three to score, the team gold was a formality, with the England trio scoring in excess of 10,000 points for a new championship record.

Howorth opened the competition with a personal best of 9.23 seconds in the 60m hurdles, which placed him 12th of the 16 finalists.

The St Augustine’s Catholic College student moved up to ninth after the long jump (5.67m) and then in the 200m, which replaced the high jump in this competition, Howorth clocked a personal best of 25.19secs in only his second attempt at the distance indoors.

In the penultimate event, the shot putt, Howorth also recorded a PB with a putt of 11.93m and moved himself up to eighth overall with just the 800m, his strongest event, to go.

Howorth knew he had to run close to two minutes to challenge for the bronze medal and he responded in style, pushing himself to the limit and setting another superb PB of two minutes and 00.76secs.

When the final scores were eventually confirmed, Howorth had leapt into the bronze medal spot, beating top Ireland multi-eventer Diarmuid O’Connor by just two points, which equates to six one hundredths of a second in the 800m.