Bolton United Harrier Hannah Kelly is targeting more national success this year after being part of the bronze medal winning women's 4x400m relay team at the World Indoor Athletics Championships.

The 23-year-old from Bury was not in the final race but played a big part in the heats, helping Team GB to a national record time at her biggest championships to date.

Off the back of a new indoor PB, set at the recent British Championships, Kelly was in confident mood when she arrived in Glasgow.

Selected as part of the women’s six-strong relay squad, there was no guarantee she would be a part of the competing team. With British team captain Laviai Neilsen selected to run in the individual 400m it would be up to the team managers to decide if Laviai would need to be rested after running three rounds of the 400m over the previous two days.

Kelly worked hard in the relay training sessions and was delighted when it was announced she had been selected to run the third leg in the 4x400m relay heat. With team-mates Lina Nielsen, Ama Pipi and Jessie Knight they were drawn against Portugal, Czech Republic, Poland and the incredibly strong Jamaican team.

Lina ran the first leg and handed over to Pipi in second place. She ran a controlled leg and passed to Kelly just ahead of the Jamaican third-leg runner. There were no nerves and she powered around the first bend increasing her lead by several metres.

BBC pundit Steve Cram was worried she had gone off too fast, but Kelly did not disappoint and continued to move away from the rest of the field and passed the baton over to the last-leg runner, Knight ,with a commanding lead. She brought the team home in a new British record time of 3mins 26.4secs.

In an assured TV interview Kelly commented the British crowd had helped her to run the fastest time she had ever run - her third leg timed at 51.16 - the second fastest of the British team.

An emotional coach, Les Hall said “Hannah has now arrived on the world stage and has done everything right. The run was perfection and I’m so incredibly proud of her.”

Team manager and former Olympic 4x100m gold medalist, Darren Campbell, had a difficult job of selecting the team for the final, and it was inevitable individual 400m fourth-place competitor Laviai Nielsen would come in to strengthen the team which meant youngster Kelly missed out this time.

She cheered on her team-mates, however, as the dominant Dutch team took gold- just ahead of the USA. But Knight brought the baton home in third for Team GB to claim the bronze.

It meant a jubilant Kelly was rewarded for her fantastic performance in the heat with her first international medal.

She now has high hopes for the summer 2024 outdoor season including the European championships in Rome, in June, followed by the Olympic Games in Paris in August. Kelly hopes to be selected for the GB relay qualifying squad when the best relay teams compete to secure their places at the Olympic Games in the Bahamas, in May.

She said: “I’ll take a few days off now and then get back into a period of hard training before heading to Majorca in April for some warm-weather training.

",If I can continue to progress then there is no reason why I can’t be in the mix to be selected for another major championship this year.”