A SHOT PUTTER from North Yorkshire has received a boost in his ambitions to conquer the sport globally.

British champion Scott Lincoln, from Brompton, is currently ranked first in the UK indoor and outdoor shot put and is in the top 30 in Europe.

He travels extensively to compete in international competitions and has been awarded a £1,000 grant from the Northallerton-based Ben Hyde Memorial Trust to help him buy equipment to enhance his performances.

The Trust was set up in 2005 by the parents of Lance Corporal Ben Hyde, who was one of six Royal Military Policemen killed in June 2003 in Southern Iraq when he and his comrades were attacked by an armed mob.

Lnc Cpl Hyde was a keen sportsman so his father John believed it was fitting to award a grant to help a North Yorkshire athlete.

Mr Lincoln will use the money to buy a pair of Recovery Pump boots to help ease aches and pains between competitions.

Already popular with sportsmen in the United States, the recovery boots are pulled over the legs like trousers and work like a massage to reduce lactic acid build up in the muscles.

Mr Lincoln, who is currently 66th in the global shot put rankings, says the equipment will “massively help” him in his ambitions to climb the sport’s international rankings.

He said: “You can use them in airports before and after flights and it will make me feel much more fresh because the travelling and competing does take it out of you.

“Through the summer I am usually away in different countries every weekend so anything you can do to help your body recover is a help.”

Mr Lincoln’s next competition is relatively close to home as he prepares to compete in the North of England regional contest in Sheffield this weekend.

He will then travel to Vienna and Iceland in the coming weeks before launching a title defence of his British championship.

He said there is not a lot of funding available to help individual sportsmen like him so he was “massively grateful” to the Hyde Trust for the grant.

Mr Lincoln, aged 23, has been competing in the shot put for the last eight years and works as a builder in his family’s firm.

Other athletes to have benefited from the benevolence of the Lance Corporal Ben Hyde Memorial Trust include a Bronze medal winner in the Taekwondo Commonwealth Games and a Gold medal winner in the Rio Paralympics.