RISING middle-distance talent Dale Clutterbuck goes into this weekend’s British Championships believing he can’t be beaten.

The 23-year-old from Canvey has had a season to remember on the track this summer and he believes he can keep that going when he takes on the country’s best at the national championships in Birmingham.

A domestic record of 14 wins out of 15 races has given Clutterbuck that feeling of invincibility and he goes to the Alexander Stadium this weekend confident of improving that record further.

Clutterbuck’s story is an incredible one.

Always recognised as being a major talent, the Canvey Islander looked to have given up on the sport 12 months ago.

A combination of niggling injuries and frustrations with the sport left him disillusioned with athletics and he preferred nights out with his mates to a hard session at the track.

It looked as though he would be another classic case of a major talent going to waste before a chance encounter with Basildon’s former Commonwealth 800m medallist Matthew Yates last October.

Yates, like Clutterbuck a former Basildon AC athlete, agreed to supervise his training and since then his form has been nothing short of outstanding.

He had an encouraging indoor season which has led to a memorable summer that has seen Clutterbuck not only pile on the race victories but lower his personal bests in both the 800m (1m 48.36s) and the 1,500m (3m 40.46s).

And he puts this turnaround in form down to one man.

“Matt Yates has been unbelievable for me,” Clutterbuck said. “He was telling me all winter I would run 3m 35s for 1,500m this summer and I thought ‘yeah, yeah. I’ve been told this lots of times before and it hasn’t happened’. But now it doesn’t feel that far off.

“I wouldn’t be running this well without him. He has taught me how to win races. I have won 14 out of 15 races domestically this season. I’m not losing.

“He does not care about times, he just wants wins and he gives me so much confidence it’s ridiculous. To the point where I’m on the start line and I’m thinking ‘there’s no way I’m going to be beaten here’. He has drummed that into me since October.”

And Clutterbuck insists he will be feeling just like that again when he lines up against the best 1,500m runners in the country this weekend.

“I want to win the British Championships,” Clutterbuck said. “That has been the goal all year, to go there and win. It’s wide open this year.

“I feel ready. I’ve been doing a lot of rounds at championships. I did the 800m and 1,500m at the Essex Championships, three rounds of the 800m at the Southern Championships. It’s all experience of going through rounds. I know what I should be doing.”

The British Championships also double up as the trials for the World Championships in Beijing in August.

Clutterbuck would have to finish in the top two and run a big new PB of 3m 36.20s to even be considered for a major championship like that.

But the Newham & Essex Beagle believes it is only a matter of time before he is mixing it with the best in the world.

“It’s time to step up now,” he said. “I’m 23 years old. I don’t go out any more, I don’t drink, this is what I want. I want to make a career out of this and I believe I really can.”

WHO ELSE IS RACING?

A NUMBER of south Essex’s brightest young talents will also be competing at the British Championships this weekend which doubles up as the trials for the World Championships next month.

Jessica Judd, who has stepped up from the 800m to the 1,500m this season, will be looking to keep on an upward trend of recording a new PB last weekend of 4m 9.56s which makes her the joint third fastest in the country.

She will be joined in the 1,500m line-up by Thurrock Harriers’ Gemma Holloway, who will be making her championships debut, and by Basildon AC’s Gemma Kersey.

Kersey’s training partner Adam Hickey (Southend AC) runs in the 5,000m while Basildon AC’s Kaylee Dodd runs in the 800m fresh from her return from her first season at college in the USA.