Mansfield climber Sam Hammond comes an impressive seventh on boulder debut in Italy

The 17-year-old, who studies at Mansfield's Joseph Whitaker School, said: “I really enjoyed my first international boulder competition and I was happy with my result.

“But there is room for improvement, so it's back to training before I head off to Graz at the beginning of May.”

Over 400 young athletes from across Europe took part in the two-day competition in humid conditions.

The U18 male category saw 80 competitors challenge for a top 10 place to make the finals. Sam placed eighth and in the finals managed to improve on his position and finished the competition in seventh.

The qualifying round was six boulders and athletes had four minutes to try to top the boulder - they could have as many attempts as they wanted within that time. They then had a four minute rest before they had their four minutes on the next problem.

In the qualifiers he faced six boulder problems and topped three and zoned five.

The four boulder problems in the final saw him top three and zone four.

The athletes arrived in Curno on the Thursday, competed on Saturday with the finals being Sunday, before heading home for two nights ahead of a Paris training camp in preparation for the next boulder comp

Sam won the Junior British Lead Championship in 2022 and is chasing a place in the World Championships in China.