FRENCH decathlete Gael Querin will remember Hexham fondly after he reached the Olympic qualifying mark in the Tyne Valley at the weekend.

With the qualifying target at 8,100 points for Rio 2016, the Lille athlete was overjoyed to pass the total by just 14 points as Hexham hosted the EAP International Combined Events for the 20th year running.

The athletics meeting continues to attract elite athletes from across the world, last year's winner Adam Helcelet, of the Czech Republic, scoring 8,158 points which means Hexham has now produced two winners who have achieved the World and Olympic qualifying standards.

Meeting organiser Richard Hunter was delighted to have another Olympic qualifier at the Wentworth Leisure Centre, saying the weekend is keeping Hexham on the athletics map.

He said: “The only meetings with bigger and better start lists in the world are the top two or three IAAF World Challenge events in Europe, with larger budgets and prize money, and the US Championships.

“To show how good this performance was, Querin would have finished fourth at the European Championships held two days before Hexham with his Hexham performance!”

It was a great year all-round at Hexham with new championship records created in the decathlon 100m and shot, and heptathlon 100m hurdles and 200m.

Sybren Blok, of the Netherlands, ran a new best time of 10.71 seconds in the 100m and Norwegian star Lars Viken Rise, fresh from doing the first day of the European Championships, broke the shot putt record set by 2004 winner Dean Macey by throwing a distance of 15.62m.

There was plenty of talent among the female decathletes too, with African champion Uhunoma Osazuwa, of Nigeria, 400 points off the Rio qualifying standard as she topped the field at Wentworth. She still stands a chance of heading to the Olympics, but awaits the selectors' decision.

The Las Vegas-based athlete did make her mark by setting the new track record in the 200m, going under 24 seconds with an impressive time of 23.98.

Canada's Jessica Zelinka, who was sixth in London 2012 and fifth in Beijing four years earlier, went into the meeting as favourite for the title, and she started the weekend in eye-catching fashion by setting a new track record in the 100m hurdles as she stopped the clock in 13.22 seconds.

Romain Martin (7.805) finished behind his compatriot in the decathlon stakes, with Rise (7,691) third and Blok (7,444) just missing out on the top three.

Polish athlete Izabela Mikolajczyk (5,766) finished runner-up to Osazuwa, with Makeba Alcide (5,684), of St Lucia, third and Maddie Buttinger (5,495), of Canda, fourth.