WILTSHIRE sprinter Danny Talbot believes last week’s European Championships 200m bronze medal is the perfect stepping stone to his ultimate goal of the summer – qualification for the Olympic final.

Talbot’s place in Team GB bound for Brazil was confirmed yesterday afternoon, with the 25-year-old having booked his berth courtesy of a second-placed finish at the British Championships late last month.

Trowbridge’s Talbot can now head to Rio with a spring in his step and another major medal in his back pocket after bagging the final spot on the podium at the Europeans in Amsterdam last Friday.

He also won European bronze four years ago in Helsinki ahead of his Olympic debut at London 2012 and now Talbot wants to challenge for honours on the grandest stage of all.

“I know what shape I’m in and I know in the rankings I wasn’t as high up as I would like to have been but I am very confident that when I am in a race, I know I can beat people and how well I can race in good conditions,” said Talbot.

“The minimum expectation was to get a medal and I was hoping to actually win it but to come back with a medal of any colour is always nice from a championship.

“Especially a championship just before Rio – that gives me a lot of confidence that I can go there and perform well and hopefully make that final.”

Talbot actually headed off the track in Amsterdam frustrated at his performance as he had only crossed the line fourth.

However, winner Churandy Martina was disqualified for running out his lane in front of a home crowd, a decision that subsequently saw Talbot upgraded to bronze.

Talbot had qualified fastest from the semi-finals with a season’s best clocking of 20.37 seconds but was unable to reproduce his best in the final as he came home in 20.56 behind gold medallist Bruno Hortelano, of Spain, in 20.45 and Turkey’s Ramil Guliyev in 20.51.

“After the heats I felt very, very good and very confident about the final and then unfortunately in the final, my body didn’t really respond in the way I wanted it to,” said Talbot.

“I still feel like I executed the race tactically how I wanted to but unfortunately I just didn’t run how I’d like.

“I got back to the warm-up track and found out that I’d been upgraded to third. I didn’t really believe people at first but my coach came over and said I’d got the bronze, so it was a very strange evening.”