Hurdler Flannery aiming high after personal best at Bedford

HURDLER Niall Flannery immediately set his sights on a European Junior Athletics Championships medal after smashing his personal best and the competition record at the England under-20 Championships this weekend.

AIMING HIGH: Niall Flannery is eyeing the podium at the European Junior Championships

The 18-year-old clinched 400m hurdles gold in a time of 51.07 seconds in Bedford, to rubber-stamp his place in the British squad bound for Serbia this July.

Flannery was among the stand-out performers of the weekend, finishing over a second ahead of Loughborough's Michael Baker and breaking Richard Davenport's five-year-old championship record, en route to the sixth-fastest time of all time by any Brit at under-20 level.

And with his time the second fastest in Europe this year, the Gateshead Harrier immediately set his sights on taking his domestic dominance to a higher level.

"I'm delighted - that was a great time, a massive PB," said Flannery, who is one of 15 up-and-coming athletes selected for the UK Athletics Heroes Project, supported by Original Source.

"It's been coming down regularly but to get something near 51.00 is awesome. With a bit more training before the Europeans I can get it down under that.

"I want to bring back a medal and I'll be disappointed if I don't. I'm guaranteed selection now so I've just got to concentrate on the training.

"The first thing at the Europeans will be to get to the final but then I want to bring back a medal - gold would be nice!  I'm just going to put in a hard week of training now and then knock the volume off a bit, tapering it off before the Europeans."

* UKA Heroes project sponsored by Original Source is a successful initiative which offers financial support to talented young athletes who are working towards the 2012 and 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.