MULTI-TALENTED Witham athletics ace Jess Hopkins ended an amazing year with yet another highlight as she helped lead England to team honours and claimed an individual silver medal at the Home Countries International Combined Events Championships.

The 14-year-old Maltings Academy pupil earned her place in the England team for the event in Athlone in Ireland after coming second in the English Schools Combined Championships in Exeter in September.

And she made sure her hard work in preparation paid off as she finished with a new personal best pentathlon score of 3,463 over the five disciplines to finish second in the under-17 women's category.

That result means Hopkins, who trains under coaches Steve Mitchell and Sarah Besford at Chelmsford Athletics Club, has finished 2016 ranked second both indoors and outdoors in the UK for her under-15 age group in the pentathlon.

"The whole experience was phenomenal," she said.

"I met some incredible athletes and had so much fun competing and getting to know everyone on the team - it was truly an unforgettable experience.

"I want to say a special thank you to my support team, Maltings Academy and Mr Gibbons head of PE for coming to Ireland to support me, Mark and Julie Benterman for the sponsorship and my family for supporting me all the way."

Knowing that a strong finish to the year would propel her forward heading into 2017, Hopkins put in plenty of hard work in the weeks leading up to the event in Ireland and she was delighted to get her reward.

She added: "Leading up to the competition I've been training extremely hard with my coaches Steve Mitchell and Sarah Besford so I was fit and fully prepared.

"I also had a sports massage from Mark Benterman to ensure my muscles were good."

However, despite her hard work leading up to the championships, the Witham multi-event star had to recover from a slow start.

She said: "The long jump was the first event and I jumped 4.96 metres, which put me in ninth place.

"I wasn't too happy with the distance because I was hoping to get over 5.05 metres, but next up was the hurdles and I ran a personal best of 9.22 seconds to take me up to third place.

"In the high jump, I jumped 1.63 metres to maintain my third position and then I threw 12.57 metres in the shot putt, which carried me up to first.

"The last event of the day was the 800 metres, which I ran two minutes 39.35 seconds and that placed me second at the end."