COLCHESTER'S Charlie Dobson has qualified for tomorrow's men's 400 metres final after clocking the quickest semi-final time in the history of the European Athletics Championships.

Dobson, 24, ran an outstanding time of 44.65s running for Great Britain at the event, in Rome.

The Colchester Harriers AC member, coached by Leon Baptiste, finished fastest in the second fastest 400m time of his career, to book his place in tomorrow night's final.

 

Dobson said: "I don’t think you can ever call a 400m easy but it obviously wasn’t the hardest 400 I can run.

"I executed my race plan as I wanted, to get to 3-350m, see where I am at and if I need to push a bit harder I’ve got the reserve to do that and I did.

"We got through comfortably and that was the ultimate aim.

"It was nice, a decent track and it was about getting back into the rhythm of racing to be honest.

"The aim was just to win it so there were no doubts - and I did that so, cool, done."

 

Dobson last month won the men's 400 metres in his individual season opener at the Meeting Citta di Savona, in Italy  in a time of 44.46 seconds.

It saw him beat his own personal best (PB) by more than half a second as he coasted to victory.

It lifted Dobson from number 22 to number six on the UK all-time rankings.