DORSET'S Melissa Courtney has been selected to run for Wales in the Commonwealth Games in Australia in April, reports Nigel Harding.
Four years ago, Courtney suffered heartache as she missed qualification for the Glasgow games by just 0.41s.
She ran 1500m for Team GB at the European Championships in Amsterdam in 2016 and won gold on the mixed relay team at the 2017 European Cross-Country Championships in Slovakia.
Posting personal bests of 4:05.83 and 15:28.95 last year, Courtney has been selected to double up in her specialist 1500m and the 5,000m on the Gold Coast.
Courtney was named by Welsh Athletics as senior female track and field athlete of the year 2017.
She represents the land of her mother’s birth.
Courtney is a former pupil of Talbot Heath and Parkstone Grammar School and has been a member of Poole Athletic Club since 2005.
Now based at the High Performance Centre in Loughborough, Courtney is set to race indoors in Paris and Birmingham in the next fortnight.
She is chasing a 3,000m berth in the World Indoor Athletics Championships, also in Birmingham, at the start of March.
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