LAURA WEIGHTMAN maintained the fine form that won her a Commonwealth Games silver medal as she qualified for the 1,500m final on the opening morning of competition at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich.

Less than a fortnight after finishing second in the Commonwealth final in Glasgow, the Morpeth Harrier was back on the track to successfully book her place in Friday's European final.

Weightman produced a controlled qualifying display, keeping herself in the automatic qualifying places throughout and eventually finishing in fourth position in her heat, a result that was good enough to go through.

She looked like she had much more to give coming down the home straight, and will head into the final knowing she is well placed to challenge for her second major medal of the season.

However, she will have to produce a stand-out performance to win gold, with Sweden's Abeba Aregawi and Holland's Sifan Hassan, today's two heat winners, both looking extremely strong.

Hannah England qualified as one of the fastest losers from this morning's heats, but Laura Muir failed to progress to the final.