Finland’s Wilma Murto is one of the brightest young stars in European Athletics and she heads into the New Year after showing her credentials once again.
Murto, 17, was already the holder of the European youth best mark at the pole vault with 4.40m but at home in Somero over the holiday season she increased that to 4.45m.
It was superb clearance and beat Minna Nikkanen, the national senior record-holder, who was second with 4.35m.
Murto was not finished there as she then attempted 4.50m in a bid to break the world youth best of 4.46m which China’s Zhang Yingning has held since March 2007.
It was not to be this time but it was another sign of her progression after a summer where she topped the world youth lists with 4.30m from Kuortane in August.
But 4.45m territory is impressive enough for someone so young. Based on the 2015 European Athletics indoor rankings, Murto would have been joint 23rd.
Murto's record setting performance has her nominated for the European Women's Athlete of the Month award for December.
Another of Europe’s leading young talents is Morgan Lake and after her superb 2015, she has set down her goals for the year ahead.
Lake, 18, won high jump gold at the European Athletics Junior Championships in Eskilstuna in July and is the defending world junior champion at the event and for the heptathlon.
It is the multi-events which the Briton is looking towards for the Olympic Games in Rio.
Lake wants to join teammates Jessica Ennis-Hill, the defending champion, and Katarina Johnson-Thompson in the seven-discipline event and tweeted that her “main goal is to compete at the Olympics in Rio in the heptathlon and also to stay fit and healthy”.
Indoors, she will compete in the high jump including Trinec in the Czech Republic on 7 February, the second and final meeting of the International High Jump Tour.