LOUIS Sellers has turned down the chance to compete in an invitation 400 metres under the bright lights of Crystal Palace to concentrate on tomorrow's Hampshire Schools' Championships at the Mountbatten Centre.

The Winchester & District sprinter, pictured, is fast emerging as one the country's top under-20 one-lappers having lowered his personal best to 48.12 seconds in the South of England Junior Championships held at the same Portsmouth venue last month. He was beaten that day by 18-year-old Martyn Rooney of Croydon, who tops the UK junior rankings with 46.75 seconds.

Sellers currently ranks eighth in the country but, at just 17, he has a year to spare over most of his rivals.

Sellers, who lives in Andover and studies at Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke, said: "Martyn Rooney's the top guy at the moment and running against him in the South of Englands brought the best out of me. I beat some of the names I wanted to beat.

"There were lot of other regional championships being held that day, but we were the fastest region in the 400m."

With 21-year-old Basingstoke & Mid Hants runner Robert Tobin currently ranked second senior man nationally, the future of Hampshire one-lap running looks bright.

At last year's Hampshire Schools event, Sellers destroyed the intermediate Championship best previously shared by him and Tobin to take the record outright with 48.7

He went on to strike intermediate silver in the English Schools' Championships at Gateshead and would love to transform that to senior gold when the country's finest meet at Birmingham next month (July 8/9).

Other track athletes to look out for in tomorrow's Portsmouth track and field feast include Southampton's Louise Webb in the junior girls' 1,500m, Eastleigh & Winchester multi-eventer Anna Newton in the inter girls' 300m hurdles and 200m and Gosport & Fareham's Rebecca Gough in the inter girls' 3,000m.