INCREDIBLE John Nicholls says the silver medal he won at the Northern Indoor Athletics Championships on Saturday is proof he is on track for the bigger goal.

Stockton Heath shot putter Nicholls put himself on the podium after competing against men less than half his age at the Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

It comes 34 years after his first senior medal success.

The 51-year-old Sale Harriers thrower, who is older than the combined age of the athletes placing first and third, also achieved a new British best with the sport’s heavier shot in the men’s 50 to 54 bracket – breaking his own record.

British number one Scott Lincoln won the event with 18.87m and his City of York clubmate Henry Fairclough was third with 13.34m, sandwiching Nicholls’ 14.24m.

“I genuinely wasn’t expecting that,” said the Carlsberg employee, who trains using weights in his car port.

“I’ve got a different goal, which is the World Masters Indoor Championships in Deagu, Korea, at the end of March.

“But the Northerns are an indication of where I am at. With the Northerns I go back to throw as a senior, as an open-age person, rather than a vet.

“The guy that won is Britain’s number one so I know I can’t win but I get to compete. I was testing whether I can compete or not, whether I can rise to the occasion, and not necessarily how far I can throw.

“It worked very well which means my training’s in line. It’s a great platform to go back into training with my coach now saying we’re in the right direction and now we can push on and tweek where we need to.

“It’s a UK age-best too at over 50s, which is an achievement. It’s always nice when you achieve things like that, and I’ve made the rostrum again at 51. Is that good of me or is that an indictment of British shot-putting - I’m not quite certain, but I’ll take it.

“The secret now is not to sit back, but to use it as a platform to go again. After talking to my coach, he wants me to do one more meet before Deagu and again pick an open-aged event that I would find hard to win so that it makes me compete, gives me something to aim at.

“You don’t want to be winning easy, it’s no good to you.”

“It’s a heavier shot in open age to vets 50 stuff. We will move towards a lighter shot now, it is slightly different with focus on more speed and a bit less strength, a bit more range of movement.

“So we’ll start to tweek that now going towards Deagu.”