Oxford City’s world silver medallist Hannah England yesterday welcomed some of the USA and Jamaica’s leading athletes to Birmingham ahead of tomorrow’s Grand Prix at the National Indoor Arena.

England, whose training base is in Birmingham, will be one of the stars of a top-class indoor event.

With both the US and Jamaican athletics squads basing themselves in the city this July ahead of the Olympic Games, England met American sprint duo Danielle Carruthers and Bianca Knight, as well as Jamaican speedster Michael Frater.

England said: “I’m so excited to race in front of a home crowd this weekend. I do a lot of my training right in the city centre here and I run past the NIA every other day.

“I feel like all year I’m waiting for this event and the Aviva Birmingham Grand Prix in August so that I can show everyone what our sport is all about.

“I’ve got a lot of friends from university and some family who are coming along so it should be really fun.”

Racing in her favoured 1500m event at 3.45pm, the 24-year-old will go head-to-head with Ethiopian threat Genzebe Dibaba, with fellow Brit Claire Gibson also lining up against her.

England last week competed in the unfamiliar 3000m at the Aviva Indoor UK Trials and Championships, scooping her first indoor national title in the process, and the Oxford athlete admits the contest in Sheffield has left her in a confident mood.

She added: “I’ve done two indoor races and they’ve both gone really well but my coach yesterday called them my warm-up races and this the big one.”