DANNY Talbot reckons his selection as part of Team GB’s 4x100m relay team proves that an all-conquering junior career isn’t a necessity for reaching the top of the sprinting world.

The 21-year-old, from Hilperton, gave up playing football for Trowbridge Town as a youngster to train with Wessex and Bath Athletics Club, now Team Bath, but his first big competitions at the English Schools championships weren’t a roaring success.

After studying at St Augustine’s Catholic College and linking up with coach Dan Cossins at the age of 15, the Trowbridge Tornado went on to take a degree in Sports Performance at the University of Bath, which he completed earlier this year, as he looked to develop in time for an Olympic call-up.

With London 2012 firmly in his sights, Talbot said: “I can remember being in a drama lesson and my mate said to me ‘Danny, that’ll be you one day at the Olympics’.

“That was when I’d only just started doing athletics and it wasn’t even that seriously.

“I said ‘oh yeah, maybe’, just joking around, and then each year got better and better.

“I think it was 2010 when I started believing that I could make it there, when I made the team for the World Junior Championships (in Moncton, Canada).

“I always used to play football at right-back and I used to kick the ball as far as I could and then just run after it.

“When I got to secondary school, my teacher Mr (Rob) Pitcher said to me one day that I should probably just focus on athletics because I had more of a chance of being successful in it.

“He signed me and a few others up for a Saturday morning club at Bath University, when I was about 13 and as I was turning 15 I gave up football.

“I went to English Schools in Year 10 and 11 – didn’t go that well and got knocked out in the heats and semi-finals.

“I was never really one of the kids that was amazing when I was 15 or 16. When I went off to uni, that’s when I started considering myself full-time because I took the athletics more seriously than studying.

“From there, all I was focussing on was the Olympics but I think that studying alongside training is the best way to do it in athletics because it’s not a professional sport.

“Growing up, I always just did it for fun and I never really took it as seriously as other people – when I got to big competitions, I was very nervous.

“Every year I got better but it just shows that as long as you have the belief, it doesn’t matter how good you are when you’re younger.”

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