HAMPSHIRE'S Andy Vernon is determined to prove to Great Britain's Olympic selectors that he deserves a place on the team for Rio, a year after blaming his feud with Mo Farah for his controversial omission from the World Championships squad.

Fareham-born Vernon races over 10,000 metres at the European Championships in Amsterdam this week, knowing he needs to prove his form and fitness with little more than a week to go before the British team for the Games is finalised.

The 30-year-old has been hampered by injury since winning 10,000m silver and 5,000m bronze behind Farah at the Europeans in Zurich two years ago and saw his hopes of 5,000m selection for Rio dashed at the trials in Birmingham eight days ago.

His chances of being picked over the longer distance are likely to rest on the outcome in the Dutch capital.

Asked if he had a message for the selectors, Vernon, who has the Olympic qualifying standard of 28 minutes exactly from last May but has raced just four times in the last 10 months due to a succession of injuries, said: "Last year I had five weeks to prepare for a 10,000m and I ran 27mins 42secs.

"I've got a good base, I would say that actually I have two qualifying times, one in the 5,000m and one in the 10,000m.

"It's not just my first year of running these times, I've run qualifying times good enough to go to these Games for two or three years now. I think I should go. I can't say I deserve to go, but I think I should go.

"I hope they can see what I did do last year off equally bad preparations.

"And in 2014 I had bad preparation going into those championships. I've performed time and time again.

"I'm not giving up. All I can do is prove fitness."

He took a step towards doing just that by clocking a season's best 13:26.16 over 5,000m at the Paavo Nurmi Games in Finland last Wednesday.

The bad news for Vernon is Rio selection could be taken out of his hands in Amsterdam. There is only one 10,000m spot up for grabs, with Ross Millington guaranteed qualification and Farah also certain to go, and Wales' Dewi Griffiths will get it if he runs the qualifying time, having beaten Vernon to a top-two finish at the 10,000m trial in May.

The good news for Vernon is that Griffiths' personal best is more than half a minute outside the qualifying time.

Despite his double medal success in Zurich, Vernon is best known for his public feud with double Olympic champion Farah.

Farah, who was born in Somalia, alleged Vernon questioned his nationality after their medal success at the 2014 Europeans, claims strongly denied by the Hampshire athlete.

Vernon lost an appeal against his non-selection for last year's World Championships - he struggled for form after achieving the qualifying standard - and went on to suggest Farah was behind it.

He tweeted after Farah's 10,000m victory in Beijing: ''Well done on your medal @Mo_Farah Great to hear you love to represent your country. Thank you for stopping me do the same."

British Athletics performance director Neil Black dismissed the idea that the pair's spat was the reason for Vernon's omission.

Farah is not competing in Amsterdam this week, focusing instead on his preparations for Rio.

Jessica Ennis-Hill is also absent, but it is still a surprisingly strong team which has made the trip, even though Adam Gemili has made a late decision to withdraw from the individual 100m to focus on the relay.

Britain's athletes will be expected to challenge, or even exceed, the 12 golds, and 23 medals in total, they won last time, especially as Russia will not be competing due to the country's doping ban.

Eclipsing that haul would give Britain their best ever return from a European Championships.

The event at Amsterdam's Olympic Stadium runs from Wednesday to Sunday.