Rooney intends to move up to the 800m event in time

Loughborough 400m runner Martyn Rooney says training at the town's High Performance Athletics Centre is the key to his hopes of success in Beijing.

The 21-year-old qualified impressively at the Olympic trials in Birmingham.

He told BBC Radio Leicester: "Loughborough is an ideal place to train as an athlete.

"When everybody's aiming for Beijing it creates a great environment and it's inspiring to see athletes you train alongside doing well."

Rooney clocked up a world-class time of 45.31 seconds at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium.

He lined up in the final as the only British 400m athlete to have achieved the Olympic 'A' qualifying standard this year.

"I'm very happy to win" he said, "I'm just a little disappointed that I didn't get the competitive race I was hoping for."

The much-anticipated clash with last year's winner Andrew Steele failed to materialise after Steele pulled out of the final because of an injury.