JACK Thomas will be cheering on British team-mate Lizzie Yarnold as she bids to add World Championships gold to her Olympic and World Cup titles in Germany next week.

But the fast-improving Bolton skeleton rider hopes to follow her on the gold trail at the annual competition next season.

The UK’s number five ranked slider just missed out on the Team GB squad to compete in this year's championships in Winterburg.

He broke the world record for the push off in his first race of the European Cup season, but persistent nose bleeds blighted his progress before the 24-year-old former Westhoughton High School pupil stormed back after corrective surgery to win the first major race of his career at St Moritz last month (January).

“I think I have a great chance of making the team for next year’s World Championships at Igls (in Germany) because the course is notoriously quick and suits the guys with the fastest starts,” said Thomas, a former Bolton schools and county 100m sprint champion who still trains with Horwich RMI Harriers.

“If I am given a chance I won’t be going there just to make up the numbers.

“I believe I have the raw skills to compete at the very top, it just hasn’t quite come together for me this year.”

The high g-forces all sliders experience combined with a weakened blood vessel in his nose to give Thomas nose bleeds whenever he took to the track during the majority of the season.

“My visor would just fill up with blood,” said the athlete, who swapped track shoes for a sled in 2011 after being recruited through the British Olympic Talent ID programme.

“It didn’t matter what I did to try to seal my nose up before each run, it would just keep pouring out.

“In some respects it shouldn’t matter because when you are riding all you can see is white.

“You rely on your touch and feel, as well as your balance, to navigate your way down the track, but sub-consciously the nose bleeds were affecting me and it obviously had an impact on my times.”

Thomas still managed to finish inside the top 10 in the first four races of what was only his second competitive season before he flew home over the festive break to have his nose cauterized.

He returned to win at St Moritz, breaking the course record in the process, before finishing 10th in the final event at Igls after problems with his sled.

“In many respects this has been a frustrating season for me even though I have fulfilled my main objective,” added Thomas, whose results should see him move up to compete in the Intercontinental competition – the sport’s second tier – next season.

“I knew with the push-off times I was putting in that I should have been competing for honours more, but my downtimes were being affected by my nose bleeds.

“But I got both sides right at St Moritz and set a new course record.

“Out of all the guys – those in the European Cup, Intercontinental series and the top competitors in the World Cup – I had the third quickest start at St Moritz and the fastest downtime.

“That proved to me that I can compete with the very best.

“Now if I can train hard over the summer and stay fit I believe anything is possible next season.”

At present, Thomas is still lagging behind Damien Parsons, Ed Smith and David Swift in the British rankings, and they will all be competing for Team GB in the men's skeleton event at the World Championships next Thursday.

And the future of former Olympian Kristan Bromley could also determine whether the Liverpool-born skeleton rider gets his chance to shine at the Worlds next year.

“Kristan has been the British number one for the last 10 or 15 years, but he is 42 now and has been injured for the last 12 months so I don’t know whether he is about ready to retire,” said Thomas.

"That would leave a bit of a vacuum in the men’s team that I know all the guys will be working hard to fill.

"Lizzie Yarnold has shown us all what is possible so it up to us to step up to that mark and I have to believe that is something I am capable of.

"Winning Olympic gold is my ultimate goal. It's what motivated me to get into sport and when I realised I would not be able to do that as a sprinter it is what inspired me to look for a different challenge.

"They say you reach your peak in skeleton after you have been in the sport for 10 years, so I have time on my side, but I hope to be in position to make the team for the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang (South Korea) in 2018."