BOLTON'S top athlete Tom Lancashire continued his bid for selection for his second Olympics with an encouraging performance in Ostrava on Friday night.

The Bolton United Harrier from Bromley Cross ran his first 1,500m of the season in 3mins 39.95secs, less than four seconds outside the qualifying time for Rio 2016.

Lancashire, aged 30, who is considering stepping up to 5,000m this season, said of his run in the Golden Spike international meeting in the Czech Republic in which he finished ninth: "It's a start. Ideally I wanted to run quicker, even if was not the qualifying standard, purely because it would have made it easier to get into quicker races.

"But I'm fairly happy with it. I felt comfortable most of the way and was just missing that last 300m or so. But I feel I'm not too far away."