ATHLETICS: TOM Lancashire will bid to force his way into Great Britain’s European Championships team tomorrow night.

The Bolton 1,500m runner failed to seal his place in Sunday’s trials in Birmingham when he finished outside the first two qualifying places.

But the way could still be open for the Bromley Cross man to make it onto the plane for Barcelona next month, as only one British runner has the “A” time required to qualify for the team.

Lancashire, who led Sunday’s showdown of Britain’s top 1,500m runners for the last two laps before running out of steam on the final straight, represented Britain at the World Championships last year and the Olympics the year before.

He had high hopes of making his mark at the easier European Championships this year before being struck down by illness then injury.

His training and preparations have suffered and he only had two weeks of serious training before the trials, which his lack of strength at the finish of Sunday’s race proved was not enough.

His heat on Saturday, and the final on Sunday, were only Lancashire’s second and third 1,500m races of the season.

His first was three weeks earlier in Spain when a solid run sent him straight to the top of the British rankings.

He had dropped to second in the national rankings going into Sunday’s race, behind Andy Baddeley.

Qualification for the Europeans depends on him running the A qualification time of 3 minutes 36.5 seconds in the next week.

Even then he is not certain of going as places are only guaranteed to runners who finish in the first two at the trials and have the A time.

But the fact that he has a record of running times far superior to all the other British contenders apart from Baddeley could act in his favour.

“I’ll be going to Madrid on Friday and I am desperate to run a fast race because no one other than Andy Baddeley has the A time,” said Lancashire.

“There will be a lot of talented Spanish athletes in the race, a couple of them who have run 3:34/3:35 so there’s a chance of a good time.”

Looking back on Sunday’s race, in which he was pipped at the post to finish fourth, he said: “It wasn’t in my plans to lead the race like I did.

“I was banking on a couple of people going with the pacemaker. They didn’t and I didn’t want to go with him because the last 800m would have been a long way to go on my own.

“I took it on from 400 to 500 out and it took its toll at the end.

“I am definitely not as fit as I should be. I had the second fastest time this year going into the race.

“Looking back I would have run it differently and not have put myself in front like that. Or I would have gone with the pacer and separated the guys who have not run that fast before.

“I got it tactically wrong.”