Oxford City triple jumper Nathan Douglas has realised a boyhood dream by winning a place in Great Britain's team for the Olympic Games.

The 21-year-old produced the leap of his life to post 16.95m - the Olympic qualifying distance - with his last jump in the AAA Championships final in Manchester yesterday.

It beat his personal best by almost half a metre, and now he can look forward to flying out to Athens for the Games which run from August 13-29.

"It means everything to me," said an ecstatic Douglas. "For an athlete, the Olympics are their big dream.

"To be going to the Olympics is the top of everything. I have dreamt about this since I was young and when I started athletics as a seven-year-old."

Douglas, who lives at Hinksey, had already won the competition with a leap of 16.56m, but was well short of the mark needed to make the British team as he lined up on the runway for the last jump.

"I thought 'let's go for it' and I got the crowd behind me," he said. "I didn't know I had gone that far. I knew it was a pb and when the board showed 16.95 I couldn't believe it.

"I just laid down on the floor, knowing it was the Olympic qualifying distance. I just went through a whole load of mad emotions."

His mother, Angela, and his sisters, Kayley and Lauren, together with friend Aaron Dash were at the trackside and he went over and celebrated with them.

"I couldn't do anything," added Douglas, who has just graduated from Loughborough University with a degree in sport science. "My family was on the side and I went and hugged them.

"This is probably the best day of my life. I am going to go home now and lie on my bed and just think about it."