WINNING six of the 10 events, Swedish multi-eventer Marcus Nilsson cleaned up at Hexham at the weekend.

With a total of 7587 points, Nilsson took first place in the decathlon as athletes travelled from overseas for the annual EAP Ineternational Combined Events meeting at the Wentworth Leisure Centre.

Helping him to the top prize, he was victorious in the long jump (11.7m), shot putt (14.79m), 110m hurdles (14.87), pole vault (4.50m), javelin (56.49m) and 1500m (4:35.70).

Nilsson kept Prudhoe's Scott Hall from claiming victory in the long jump, the Tyne Valley jumper, representing Gateshead Harriers, using the event to get some jumps, and sprints in, ahead of his appearance the England Athletics Senior Championships, in Bedford, at the weekend.

Hall's jump of 6.96m was somewhat off his personal best of 7.56m, but it was enough to see him second in the event.

It followed a great run in the 100m where he clocked 10.87 seconds to cross the line first, leading the field after two events before calling it a day.

In the other events, Nilsson finished second to Poland's Pawel Wiesiolek (46.26m) in both the discus and the high jump (1.96m), and thrid in the 400m which was won by Iceland's Tristan Freyr Jonsson (49.69).

It was Jonsson's Icelandic teammates Andria Fannar Gilslason (6313pts) and Jon Gunnar Bjornsson (5880pts) who joined Nilsson on the podium though in second and third overall respectively.

There was a strong field for the pentathlon too with Jamaican athlete Salcia Slack, South African Nienka Du Toit and Emili Pardoms, a Belgian U20 athlete, joining in the action.

While she only won two events from the seven over the weekend, Crawley's Jo Rowland's consistency throughout saw her claim outright victory in the heptathlon with 5512 points.

Rowland was joint first with three other athletes after clearing 1.63m in the high jump, and saved the best until last to make sure of the win by crossing the line first in the 800m in a time of 2:16.98.

She just saw off the challenge of Gateshead's Lucy Turner (5407pts) who won the long jump (5.94m) and the 100m hurdles (13.92), in addition to tying in the high jump along with Pardoms and Marylin Nwawulor, of Harrow, who also won the 200m (24.93).

Elsewhere, Yeovil's Ellen Barber (43.48m) won the javelin and Slack enjoyed victory in the shot putt (13.59m) which helped her to third place overall.

The international athletes acted as inspiration to the junior pentathletes who were involved in their own competitions at U15 and U13 level.

Tynedale Harrier Kate Smith earned victory in both the long jump (4.47m) and 800m (2:42.23) but was denied a top three position in the U15 pentathlon by winner Charlotte Rutter, of Darlington Harriers, Caitlin Rimmer, of Sheffield and Dearne, and Kosi Izuora, of Chester-le-Street.

Tynedale teammate Ruby Clarke competed at U13 level but was unable to make the top three, as was the case for Ponteland's Abigail Leiper, of Elswick Harriers.

The competition was won by Sheffield and Dearne visitor Tilly Mycroft, with Carys Dickson. of Harrogate, second, and Kate Williams, of Darlington, third.

Darlington's Nathaniel Bell finished ahead of clubmate Samuel Dimelow in the U13 boys' event, with Kyle Taylor third, while Joseph Sayer was the sole competitor in the U15 boys' competition.