Joe Reid achieved the qualification time he required for the forthcoming European Athletics Championships with a gutsy, determined performance in the men’s 800 metre race in the Muller Indoor Grand Prix at Birmingham Arena on Saturday afternoon.

One week after winning the senior British title on the very same boards, he again lined up alongside his closest rivals, Jamie Webb and Guy Learmonth.

In the British title race, he crossed the finish line behind Liverpudlian Webb, but the latter was disqualified for impeding Learmonth and the championship went to Manxman Reid.

Saturday’s race included four invited runners - two of them Kenyans - and it was one of those, Cornelius Tuwei, who caused a collision at the end of the first lap when he was cutting in from the banking on a bend, impeding the unfortunate Learmonth.

Both men went down, Learmonth injuring his right wrist, and Reid had to go wide on the banking to avoid the chaos.

He regained his composure, overtaking Poland’s Marcin Lewandowski and getting back onto the rear of the leading trio containing Evans Kipchumba (Kenya), Joseph Deng (Australia) and Webb.

Kipchumba went through 400m in 50.07, but pulled soon afterwards to leave four runners in with a shout with three laps of the short track remaining.

At the bell, Reid went round the outside of USA’s Erik Sowinski going onto the back straight and pushed hard all the way to the line where he stopped the clock in 1min 47.83sec, a personal best and new Manx record (indoors or outdoors).

The race win went to Deng in 1:47.27 from Webb 1:47.51.

It was all about the time for Reid, and he was clearly elated after the race.