Joe Reid says he is 100 per cent confident that in two, three or four years time he will be going into championships as the favourite.

The 22-year-old from Port Erin made it into the semi-finals of the men’s 800-metre event at the European Indoor Athletics Championships on Saturday evening in Glasgow.

The evening before he finished fourth in the first of five heats, with the first two in each heat, along with the quickest other two non-automatic qualifiers, going forward to the semis.

It was a tense wait for the Manx Harriers man, but ultimately his time of 1min 48.56sec made him the sixth quickest of the 12 that made it into the semi-finals.

In a reverse-tactic to the heat, Reid ran on the front of the small group for the first lap of 200 metres, but was unable to maintain the pace of Spain’s Alvaro de Arriba, Andreas Bube (Denmark), Amel Tuka (Bosnia & Herzegovina), Christoph Kessler (Germany) and Filip Snejdr (Czech Rep) in the closing stages.

His time of 1m 51.26 was short of his personal best of 1:47.83 set at the Muller Grand Prix in Birmingham a fortnight earlier when he qualified for the European champs, but even the fastest qualifiers ran at a slower pace than that as tactics came into play.

The final was won by de Arriba in 1:46.83 from Reid’s GB team-mate Webb (who produced a pb 1:47.13).

The third GB runner, Guy Learmonth, went down in the second semi-final, having also fallen in the Muller GP and injured his right hand.

’As an athlete and a competitor I’ll always strive for the best so I was gutted not to make the final,’ said Joe. ’As ambitious as that might have seemed, given my ranking and inexperience, I was confident that I had it in me.’

He continued: ’I’m not disappointed though. I’m very upbeat and proud. In almost one year I’ve gone from getting overlooked [initially] to represent the Isle of Man at a Commonwealth Games to representing Great Britain in a European semi-final.

’This trend is going to continue over the coming years. I’m confident that this is still just the start of my journey. I’ll look back and say I remember when I couldn’t even make finals.

’I can’t begin to express what the experience of these two races has taught me. Things that you can’t learn in training, things that you can’t be coached, and things that you can’t learn without getting wrong at some point.

’It’s brutal out there in that calibre of field. You feel every step and things can change in the blink of an eye. I’ve been shown some big lessons by the athletes I’ve raced and that’s something I’ll be grateful for in the future.

’The support I’ve received has been truly immense. It makes me so proud to be from the Isle of Man. Thank you to everyone who has reached out in some way. You all make me want to be better, run faster, train harder and experience more major championships.

’Whenever I’m back home, if you see me out running, give me a shout, wave, beep or whatever. I’ll need the motivation to build on the engine that I’m slowly putting into my body.’