IWAN THOMAS could afford a quiet chuckle as he pulled out his best time for three years in Saturday's British Athletics League Division 1 match at Windsor's Thames Valley Athletics Stadium.

Not only did his 45.77second run smash the league record but it also created a track record - on the home territory of his arch 400 metres rival Mark Richardson!

"I must admit I had a little laugh about that, what with this being Mark's home track and all," confided Thomas.

"And it feels pretty good to have broken Derek Redmond's league record too. Apparently his 45.8 time dated back to 1991."

Most significantly of all, however, the 27-year-old from Netley has reached a personal milestone along his comeback trail with less than a week to go before the AAA Championships on which all hope of next month's World Championships in Edmonton, Canada depends.

Two years ago Thomas's World prospects were sunk by an ankle injury and, after belated start to last season due to hamstring trouble, his Olympic dream died too when the fastest he could manage was a 45.82 run in Sweden.

Until ten days ago, he had failed to break the 46-second barrier this summer, but a 45.95 run in Dublin that evening provided a ray of hope and now daylight has come flooding in for the 1998 European and Commonwealth champion.

Watched by UK Athletics' performance director Max Jones, Thomas, running in the colours of Newham & Essex Beagles, allowed Blackheath Zimbabwean Tawanda Chiwara to make the early running before slipping up a gear off the final bend.

He smiled: "The Zimbab-wean went off really fast a bit like I'd been doing, but this time I didn't chase after him. I took the first 100 quite slow and steady and then powered past everyone at 300m.

"I couldn't believe it when Max Jones said he was there just to watch me, but I was determined not to feel too pressurised and actually ran a very relaxed race."

Thomas's time was a mere three hundredths of a second shy of the World Championship qualifying time and he is confident it will come right in Birmingham this weekend.

"It's all coming together at the right time," he said. "I'm feeling really confident because I know I'm a championship runner."