THE focus quickly turned to Hampshire’s unknown runner Jess Andrews after coming from nowhere to qualify for the Olympic Games and stun the athletics world.

All the attention was on Jo Pavey’s return, not on Andrews, at the Parliament Hill athletics track, London, in May for the 10,000m national trials.

Forty-two-year-old Pavey’s chances of becoming the oldest track athlete in Olympic history were dealt an almost decisive blow, while a new star was born in Andrews as she left her rivals for dead.

A chest infection ruined Pavey’s hopes of qualification at the 10,000m trials – although she has since been controversially selected to become the first British track athlete to compete at five Olympic Games.

But while there was reason to be solemn for athletics legend Pavey that night, there was sheer joy for outsider and unknown Andrews as she qualified for the Olympic Games with a time that shaved more than a minute off her personal best.

Barely anyone could admit to knowing anything about Andrews before that critical point, after all she was running in just her second ever track 10,000m on that momentous night.

Why would anyone suspect that she was capable of qualifying?

The 23-year-old, who had previously represented Great Britain once in a European Cross Country Championships at under-23 level, admitted that all the attention on Pavey was beneficial.

“I think that was why I was so lucky. I had absolutely no pressure at all,”she said.

“All I could do was run as hard as I can. If that meant I’d run 33 minutes or I’d win the race, I knew that if I ran as hard as I could I would be happy in myself.

“That’s what I did and luckily it worked out very well. I was on the start line with the least stress out of everyone.”

The 31:58 win dipped 83 seconds inside her personal best, 17 seconds inside the Rio qualifying mark and four ahead of Kenya’s 2009 world champion Linet Masai.

It’s been a long and winding road to Rio for Andrews after she became disillusioned with running before moving out to Andorra with her Tour de France stage-winning cyclist Dan Martin, which helped her rediscover her love affair with athletics.