A HEPTATHLETE from Hurstbourne Tarrant who is knocking at the doors of Team GB squad for the Olympic Games in Tokyo has improved her personal best score at the World Athletics Challenge in Tenerife yesterday (Sunday).

Holly Mills could not win a medal at the Challenge, but she completed the seven events with a score of 6,211, which is 31 points more than her personal best of 6,180 she set at an event in Italy in April.

In an interview given to the Advertiser in May, Mills had said her target for Tenerife was to reach 6,200 points.

She started the two-day event in Tenerife in flying colours.

Mills, 21, won the opening 100 metres hurdles in 13.22sec and the following high jump with 1.85 metres. She took tenth place in the shot put and then finished second in the concluding 200m in 24.36sec.

With three events left on second day, Mills was at the leading position by the end of first day.

However, she slipped from her lead in the final three events as China’s Zheng Ninali took the gold medal.

Mills was ranked 26th in the world in heptathlon before the start of the World Athletics Challenge. She will get a ticket to Tokyo if she gets to 24th rank.

Mills started her sporting career at age eight. She was first spotted at a school sports day before she joined Andover Athletics Club.

Initially a long-jumper, she took up heptathlon later. She made her international debut at 16.

In 2019, she won gold in the Under-20s Pentathlon at the National Indoor Championships with a record points total, claimed the National Under-20s Heptathlon with a championship record and scooped gold in the long jump at the International Mannheim junior gala.

Holly made her senior Great Britain & Northern Ireland debut at the European Indoor Championships in March this year.