Buck is in the third year of a degree at Leeds Metropolitan University

Yorkshire 400m runner Richard Buck confirmed his place in next month's European Indoor Championships in Turin by winning the trials in Sheffield.

The Pickering runner said he overcame "a lot of little mini-dramas" to retain his title in 46.41 seconds on Sunday.

He told BBC Radio York: "It was my first competition with rounds in a year, with getting ill over the summer.

"It was more difficult to plan my races and my recovery strategies to get me through the rounds and into the final."

The City of York runner added: "I ended up riding the storm and coming out on top.

I enjoyed putting a strategy into place and it all seemed to work, so I'm looking forward to future championships Richard Buck

"I went there to win my races and win overall and that's what happened, so from that point of view it all went to plan."

Buck seems to have recovered totally from the illness that effectively cost him a place in the Great Britain 4 x 400m team in Beijing, having made the squad and travelled.

"It's just good to be racing in a championships again," he added. "I enjoyed putting a strategy into place and it all seemed to work, so I'm looking forward to future championships."

Having run 46.61 last week, he was pleased to shave 0.2 seconds off it in the final.

"It means that I'm competing at the sort of level I want to be," he added.

"I've got one more big race next Saturday at Birmingham in the Aviva Grand Prix, and then I'm going to do a small mid-week race and then do 10 days solid training before the Europeans."

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