IWAN Thomas is still searching for the elusive Olympic qualifying time after a disappointing run in Germany yesterday.

Southampton's European and Commonwealth 400 metres champion is still way behind in his training schedule after hamstring trouble - and it showed as he finished third in 46.15 seconds in Leverkusen.

"The fact that Du'aine Ladejo won the B race in 46.6 shows that times were rather slow all round, but Iwan's performance just highlights the fact that he hasn't done enough training," said Thomas's coach Mike Smith.

"Although he was disappointed, he didn't do anything wrong in the race. He went off hard and didn't particularly fade in the closing stages, but it wasn't as fast as he'd been hoping for."

Thomas now has to pray that his run in Sweden last Tuesday will be enough to clinch him a 4x400m relay nod when the Great Britain selectors meet today to finalise the Olympic team.

He ran a remarkable 45.82 that evening in Malmo - just two hundredths of a second outside the Olympic entry standard - despite all the trauma and controversy of losing out to fellow Welshman Jamie Baulch for the third individual ticket to Sydney.

Thomas has another race lined up in Sweden this Wednesday and is due to go head-to-head with his main British rivals in Bank Holiday Monday's Norwich Union Classic at Gateshead.

But Smith will be advising the 26-year-old Netley-based British record holder to ward against letting over-racing distract him from his training. "If Iwan is selected for the relay squad, he must knuckle down now and do some hard work," he said.

"At the moment he's running steadily anywhere between 45.8 and 46.2 seconds which isn't at all bad considering the background he's missed."

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.