RICHARD KILTY has endured a difficult few weeks ahead of the European Indoor Athletics Championships – but the Stockton sprinter only has to look at two of his team-mates to realise how lucky he is.

Kilty’s place on the British team for next week’s championships in Belgrade was thrown into doubt when he was disqualified for a false start at the trials in Sheffield.

The Teessider, who is the reigning European Indoor 60m champion, subsequently claimed his spikes had been stolen before the final in an act of potential sabotage, and his failure to claim an automatic place on the British squad meant he had to finish as the leading domestic competitor at last weekend’s Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix.

His preparations were far from ideal once again, as he was suffering from flu in the build-up to the event and might ordinarily have withdrawn. However, his own struggles paled into insignificance compared to those of James Ellington and Nigel Levine, his fellow sprinters who might well have been challenging him for a place in Belgrade had their lives not changed immeasurably during a winter training camp in Tenerife.

Ellington and Levine were involved in a motorbike crash that almost cost them their lives, with the former losing six pints of blood as he suffered breaks to both legs, a broken pelvis and a fractured eye socket, and the latter also fracturing his pelvis in the accident.

Kilty was part of the same training camp and visited the duo in their hospital bed, and having witnessed the early stages of their recovery at first hand, the 27-year-old is determined to keep his own problems in perspective as he looks to cement his reputation as one of the world’s leading indoor sprinters.

“Both of them are already up with their rehab,” said Kilty, who won the World Indoor 60m title in 2014. “If you need motivation to get up, just look at James and Nigel.

“When it happened I thought, ‘No, it can’t be true’. It’s heart-breaking. But those guys are so strong, I speak to them regularly.

“I woke up (last) Wednesday with cold sweats, I was full of flu. I was considering not coming, and when I was warming up I could barely breathe. But I knew I needed to come out and perform.

“My aim was to make sure I just had to beat every other British person. I did that and I think I’ll gain a tenth of a second once my illness clears up and I’m in Belgrade and rested. Now, my mind is at peace.”

The Northern Echo:

Kilty will become the first British sprinter to retain a European Indoor title since Jason Gardener if he triumphs in Belgrade, with the championships due to begin a week on Friday.

He has an extra motivation to add his medal collection in the Serbian capital as he recently became a father with his partner, Lithuanian triple jumper Dovile Dzindzaletaite. The pair have had a baby boy, also called Richard, and Kilty senior wants to be able to present him with a gold medal on his return to English shores.

“All winter through training, I’ve just been thinking about how much I want to bring that medal home to my little boy,” he said. “When I was feeling sick and tired, that was what was getting me up.”

Kilty’s partner is a former silver medallist at the World Junior Championships, and having settled in the North-East, Dzindzaletaite is considering switching nationalities to compete in a British vest in the future.

“It’s definitely something we have talked about a lot,” said Kilty. “And she’s far better than what we have got at the moment.

“No disrespect to the others, but she is one of the best triple jumpers in the world at her best, and I know there is a ban on switching nationality, but when that changes I think British Athletics would be pleased to have her.”

Kilty will be one of Britain’s leading medal hopes in Belgrade, along with Laura Muir, who will compete in both the 1,500m and 3,000m, having recently set a new European Indoor 3,000m record and smashed the previous British best at 5,000m.

“With a home World Championships in London, 2017 is an even bigger year for us than 2016,” said British Athletics performance director Neil Black. “Starting it off in a positive manner is essential, and I am expecting to see a number of medal-winning performances in Belgrade.”