Owen Smith is targeting a place in Great Britain’s 4x400m relay team at the European Athletics Championships later this year.

After representing GB in the event at the World Indoor Championships in March held in Birmingham where the British quartet finished sixth in the final, former Deeside AAC member Smith was at a warm-weather training camp in Tenerife.

Smith, from Sychdyn, Mold, had his first outdoor outing of the season for Cardiff Amateur Athletic Club in the British Athletics League Premier Division, where he won the 400m after running 46.76s.

He then ran the second leg of the 4x400m relay with a split time of 46.01s, before heading to the Loughborough International Athletics even last weekend.

There he competed in both the individual 400m and the 4x400m relay, where he came second in the former after running 46.63s, which is his second quickest time and is the fastest he has managed on British soil.

(From left to right) Great Britain's Owen Smith, Jamal Rhoden-Stevens, Grant Plenderleith and Lee Thompson after the final of the Men's 4x400 metre relay during day four of the 2018 IAAF Indoor World Championships at The Arena Birmingham.

He said: “All in all it was a good weekend, it would of been nice to take the win, but being dipped on the line by my room mate from the World Indoors makes it a little easier to take.”

Smith now has a meeting at Oordegem in Belgium this weekend, where he ran his personal best of 46.23s two years ago and is hoping to improve on his season’s best effort so far.

From there, he has a further meeting in Geneva where he will be able to compete against the best athletes on the European circuit, and admits he has an eye on gaining a place in the GB squad for the European Championships, which are to be held in August at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.

“The target for this season is to be pushing for a spot in the European Championships 4x400 relay team,” he said.

“Following on from indoors it would be nice to get another GB vest to my name and be able to run as part of the team again would be great.

“The individual standard is 46.00 which is not out of the question, but in athletics anything can happen and all I can do is keep enjoying my races and executing the races and the rest will take care of itself.”