TEAM Solent sprinter Melanie Purkiss was caught pleasantly by surprise with news of her inclusion for Great Britain's squad for the Spar European Cup in Florence later this month (June 21-22).

The 24-year-old, pictured below, from Otterbourne is one of five girls named for the 4x400m relay - an event in which she shot to fame, picking up silver for England at the Commonwealth Games last summer.

Having run modest times of 53.9sec and 53.7sec for her two one-lap runs of the season so far, Purkiss had not expected to be included in Britain's 'Italian Job' so early in the summer, but she was overjoyed with her first ever European Cup call-up.

She believes that last weekend's sharp 23.86-second victory over 200 metres at the Loughborough International may well have got her the nod from the selectors.

Purkiss, who beat Emily Freeman (24.00) into second place at Loughborough, smiled: "I didn't expect this. I've only done a couple of 400m runs so far, which were nothing spectacular, but there's a lot more to come and I think the selectors could see that from the way I ran at Loughborough. They know I'm strong and I've got a couple more runs to come this week."

Purkiss is flying out to Latvia today for a double 400m date with England. She is due to run in Riga tomorrow night and then move on to Ventspils on Saturday. The opposition comes from Wales, Estonia and Latvia.

Purkiss's call-up continues a satisfying week for her coach, Todd Bennett. He watched on in delight as another of his stable, 19-year-old Southampton University student Robert Tobin, pipped former European and Commonwealth champion Iwan Thomas to the post in the men's 400m at Loughborough, clocking 48 seconds dead.