FOR the third straight year, Adam Hickey will run for Great Britain at the European Cross-Country Championships – but winning selection this time round has been more painful than ever.

The 27-year-old has been nursing a groin injury for most of the winter season and has revealed he was on the lookout for painkillers just hours before Saturday’s British Athletics trials race in Liverpool.

Hickey, who runs for Southend AC, says he is now managing the niggle but just eight weeks ago, he was forced to pull out of the British Half-Marathon championships because the pain was too much.

“It’s something I’ve had for a while now,” Hickey said. “It’s not really going away but I’ve got to the situation where I’m able to manage it at the moment with treatment.

“A few days before the British Half-Marathon Championships in October I went to my osteopath after a session and he said there was no way I could race.

“And at one time, even walking was sending shooting pain down my leg.

“But it’s manageable now. I’ve been able to train through it and that’s important because the European Cross-Country Championships is the main objective of the winter, especially as there is no World Cross-Country Championships this year.”

Hickey had found a way to manage the niggle and run himself into form ahead of Saturday’s trial race in Liverpool.

He finished fourth in the first British Cross Challenge race of the season in Milton Keynes in early November and then was the first Englishman home in a world class race in Burgos, Spain, two weeks later.

“I’ve improved with each race,” said Hickey. “And the race in Spain, in particular, brought me on a lot.

“Immediately after that I was getting PBs in training sessions I was doing so I knew I was in good shape going into Liverpool.”

The trial race, which is also a British Cross-Challenge event, had one of the strongest senior men’s fields in some years with most of the country’s top cross-country runners on the start line.

And if that challenge wasn’t enough, the wet and slippery conditions made it even more difficult for a man managing a groin injury.

“On top of that, I was only wearing track spikes with some longer spikes in,” said Hickey. “I was struggling to go round corners at first. I was lucky it was so packed as I think everyone else kept me upright!”

Hickey overcame all that adversity to finish in fifth place. It was one spot outside the automatic spots for selection leaving the dad-of-one with a nervous wait to see if he had been picked by the selectors.

“It was a horrible wait,” he said. “It doesn’t get any easier. The first time I qualified as a senior I got into one of the automatic spots but last year I had to wait and this year was the same. It was a relief to get the call.”

Hickey will now travel with the rest of the Great Britain squad to Hyeres in the south of France for the championships next week with his race taking place on Sunday, December 13.

The Seasider will be looking to improve on his superb ninth place in Samokov, Bulgaria, last year.

JESS FAILS TO WIN SELECTION

WHILE Adam Hickey was on the happy end of a selectors’ phone call the opposite was true for Jessica Judd.

The Canvey ace, 20, finished the sixth under-23 athlete in the trial race in Liverpool on Saturday, her first big race in the new age group.

But that wasn’t enough to make the six-strong Great Britain under-23 heading to the European Championships as the selectors opted instead to pick Alice Wright who finished fifth in America’s NCAA championships last month.

Nevertheless, Judd was happy with her performance over the 8km distance. “I’m absolutely over the moon with my sixth place,” she said. “8k is a long way but I gave it absolutely everything.”

Judd’s younger sister Jodie also had reason to be smiling as she had a strong run to finish the 15th under-17 athlete in the combined under-20 and under-17 women’s race.

Thurrock Harriers’ Gemma Holloway was the 12th under-20 athlete to finish.