WITHAM's rising multi-sport athletics star Jessica Hopkins had yet another reason to celebrate as she continued to bring another successful year to a close.

The 16-year-old Maltings Academy pupil was named as Active Braintree Young Sports Personality of the Year at a gala ceremony last week after finishing 2018 as the UK's number one ranked under-17 heptathlete.

And she has also had a notable late-season outing on the track.

Hopskins competed at the Four Nations International Combined Events Championship at the Emirates Stadium in Glasgow as she represented England for the third time.

It was an indoor event, so Hopkins competed in a pentathlon instead of a heptathlon, consisting of 60 metre hurdles, high jump, long jump, shot putt and 800m and a top-three finish helped the England team to overall victory.

She said: "The first event of the day was shot putt when I managed to throw a distance of 13.16 metres.

"I wasn’t too pleased with this distance as it was a meter under my PB (personal best), however it was enough to put me in first place.

"The next event was hurdles where I ran a time of 9.02 seconds and I was very happy with this performance as it was just 0.03 seconds off of my PB.

"I was quite nervous for the next event, long jump, as it has not been very strong in any of my competitions this season, however, I was able to jump 5.42 metres, which was only five centimetres off my season's best jump.

"The penultimate event was high jump where I managed to equal my PB of 1.68m and after this was the 800m where I ran a time of two minutes 40 seconds to gain third place.

"We were also able to to gain first place in team performance.

"I’d like to take this opportunity to say how amazing it is to be a part of Chelmsford Athletics Club and to see all the young children taking part in athletics, keeping healthy and being inspired by those around them.

"I’d also like to thank my whole team for travelling to Glasgow and supporting and encouraging me throughout the whole weekend, getting me to where I need to be and making sure I had everything necessary."