PLYMOUTH hurdler David King believes securing a place in the Great Britain team for March’s World Indoor Championships is now a realistic dream after his opening run of the year.

King made a storming start to 2016 by setting a new personal best of 7.68 seconds to win the 60m hurdles at the Welsh Senior Championships in Cardiff. He beat European Under-23 champion David Omoregie in the process.

The 21-year-old former Devonport High School pupil was only 0.03 seconds off the World Championship qualifying time and King is hoping he is going to get faster in the run up to the British Championships, which will act as trials, at the end of February.

“I was very happy,” said King after his Cardiff win. “The time was a bit of a shock to be honest. I did not think it would be that fast.

“I had a fairly good indoor season last year and in my final race of the year ran a PB of 7.71.

“To run 7.68 in my first run and when I did not feel great is very encouraging.

“I would certainly like to think I can improve from where I start.”

King had been struggling with a slight hamstring problem ahead of the Cardiff meet. He was not even sure he would be able to run until the last minute.

Now he has two weeks to fully recover before competing in Gent, Belgium.

“That’s an open meet, but it’s a high level one,” said King. “There’s going to be a lot of quick guys doing it so, hopefully, I can run a bit faster.

“Then I’m hoping to get into the Glasgow Grand Prix, which has replaced the Birmingham Grand Prix. But if I don’t get into that then I will go to Metz in France, which is where I ran 7.71 last season.”

King is hoping he can get the crucial 7.65 time before the British trials in Sheffield, which will decide the GB team for Portland.

At one point it had looked like he had done it on Sunday.

“The clock actually stopped at 7.65,” said King. “But it got round-up to 7.68, which is quite a big round-up.

“However, if you’d asked me before I would have been more than happy with 7.68.”