TEAM Solent's Kieren Kelly is shaping up as a 'big shot' of the future in British athletics, but there is nothing conceited about the up-and-coming star.

After clinching shot put silver with a 16.13-metre heave in the AAA Junior Championships at Bedford on Saturday, the 17-year-old from Lower Bemerton, near Salisbury, is off to Italy with the Great Britain U-20 squad this weekend for his first ever international match.

After just a year's serious training under the eye of Southampton-based ex-international Dave Callaway, it's an achievement worth bragging about to his Bishop Wordsworth classmates in Salisbury. But Kelly, who has just taken his AS Level exams, was modesty personified as he digested news of his international breakthrough.

He said: "It's all a bit sudden - I'm surprised really. I thought I'd start off with an England vest and then work my way through to a GB call-up, but I've gone straight into the British team.

"I had a bit of cold before the AAAs, but I was pleased with my performance even though it was 40-odd centimetres off my personal best."

Kelly's best distance so far was a whopping 16.50, which won him the South of England U-20 title using the six-kilogram shot.

Next weekend (July 11/12), he will be among the favourites for the English Schools' title, competing for his home county of Wiltshire.

He said: "Hopefully I can pull off something good again in Italy this weekend. My ultimate goal is to reach world standard and follow in the footsteps of my hero Geoff Capes."

Team Solent chairman Mike Smith is no doubt about Kelly's potential. He said: "Kieron's certainly one to watch.

"He's a giant of a boy who was a good rugby player in the past and he's already thrown over 14 metres with the heavier senior shot.He looks a real prospect and he's a genuinely top lad."

Kelly's Team Solent clubmate Jade Lucas-Read is also included in the squad for Italy. The 18-year-old south Londoner caught the eye of the selectors by scorching to 100 metres gold at Bedford in a personal best 11.59 secs.

There is also a first international vest awaiting 15-year-old Wildern schoolboy Nick Ball, who triumphed in the U-20 10-kilometre walk at Bedford and goes over the shorter 5k distance in Nove.

Also making the trip is AAA U-20 400 metres hurdles champion Sian Scott, who is coached in Southampton by Todd Bennett, and her Bournemouth AC clubmate Charlotte Moore, who made last season's Commonwealth Games 800m final but was beaten by Newquay's Jemma Simpson in the AAA U-20s.

Saturday's match, against the Italian national U-20 team and an Italian regional team, will be the final chance for athletes to impress before the European Junior Championships in Tampere, Finland (July 24-27) and the World Youth Championships in Sherbrooke, Canada (July 9-13).

l Lack of athletes in the U-17 age-group kept Team Solent in the shadow of Aldershot, Farnham & District in the UKA National Young Athletes' League Southern 1 West at Portsmouth.

Nevertheless, there were some good performances from the boys in red and white stripes, who achieved 34 first places. Young Elliott Chudleigh had a particularly fine day, scoring a full house of A-string successes in the U-13 sprints and long jump.

The girls also had a treble winner in the younger age-group with Claire Varcoe cleaning up in the 75m, 150m and 70m hurdles.