DALE GARLAND will not be going to next month’s Olympics in Athens despite his silver medal at the Olympic qualifiers and AAA Championships in Manchester. Yesterday he admitted an Olympic spot was ‘realistically never an issue’ and that his new island record of 51.16 was well adrift of the standards set.

Garland would have had to run almost a second-and-a-half quicker to achieve the B standard for the 400m hurdles: ’49.7 is a bit too much this season,’ said the track and field star.

The Guernseyman then went on to explain that because Chris Rawlinson, the national champion has run the A standard of 49.2, any other Briton hoping to join him in Greece would also have to have run that time, or quicker.

Not that Garland ever expected to book a place on the plane with the GB team, especially after the tightening of the standard set for Sydney in 2000.

On that occasion, 50.4, a time Garland feels he is capable of, was the A standard.

Nevertheless, Garland’s latest triumph augurs well for the 2006 Commonwealth Games where he may double up with the 400 hurdles and decathlon, or just do one or the other.

‘It depends on how the 400 hurdles go and how good I get at that before I decide to do the decathlon.

‘If I’m running sub 50, I’d be in with a medal chance.’

Garland, who continues to enjoy the benefit of three-year funding support from MeesPierson Reads, next competes at what is, in effect, a European Grand Prix B meeting at Loughborough on Saturday.

Twenty-four hours later he spearheads the Ansbacher Channel Islands club’s challenge in the semi-finals of the British Jubilee Cup semi-finals at Eton.

The CIAC go into that tough encounter on the back of a fighting win for the men’s team in their latest Southern League Division Three match in Bracknell.

Despite missing more than half a team due to the clash of the AAA Championships and English Schools on the same day, CIAC overcame their nearest title rivals, Hercules Wimbledon, by just a point and now have one hand on the league trophy.

Up in Gateshead, Erica Bodman was not at her best in jumping 1.62 for 13th place in the English Schools high jump.

Tom Druce ran superbly to clock 1-57.75 for the senior boys’ 800m but just missed out on the final.

Jersey, meanwhile, celebrated a gold medal for their boy mountain, Jamie Stevenson, who won the discus with 42.71m.

Lauren Therin also triumphed, winning the senior girls’ discus.

To complete a successful meeting for the Jersey contingent, Rebecca Slater won a bronze in the junior girls’ javelin and Stephen Prosser reached the final of the intermediate 100m sprint.