TALENTED Rayleigh all-rounder Robert Runciman is still smiling after winning two gold medals on his debut for England.

The 15-year-old beat the best from the England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland to win the under-15 boys Schools Pentathlon in Glasgow.

The Sweyne Park School pupil also recorded three personal bests (PB) in the five-event competition, helping the England squad to team gold too.

“It was an amazing experience,” said Runciman who qualified for the competition after finishing second in the English Schools multi-event championships in September.

“It was the biggest event of my career so far. I’d only done two national competitions before this so it was very special.

“The main focus was winning the team event. All the England team had a bit of a secret rivalry but we didn’t really want to show it to each other so we focused on the team.”

While the England team may have been focused on winning the team prize, Runciman did have secret ambitions of finishing on top of the individual podium.

“I thought I had a chance of winning but knew that I would have to perform really well because there were some really good people I was up against,” he said.

Runciman got his quest for individual gold off to a flying start with a PB in the 60m hurdles of 8.72s that put him in second place.

After leaping 5.84m in the long jump and then running 24.33s in the 200m, the Chelmsford AC athlete then launched the shot to a huge new best of 13.45m which put him in first place going into the final event the 800m.

“I think every multi-eventer dislikes the 800m,” said Runciman. “But I knew I had about a 40-point lead over the Irish athlete in second which equated to four seconds and then a five-second advantage over the English athlete in third.

“I knew that if I kept in touch with those two, I’d be alright.”

And that’s exactly what he did, running a new 800m PB of 2m 13.37s in the process.

“It felt brilliant afterwards,” he said. “It was a reward for all the hard work I have put in this year.”

Runciman, who is also one of the country’s leading high jumpers, will now be stepping up into the under-17 age group and with it will come some new disciplines to master as a multi-eventer.

“I want to keep improving in everything next year,” he said. “I’ve got the pole vault to learn and want to get my discus and javelin better too.”