Great Britain's Marilyn Okoro competes in the Women's 800 metres

Neasden’s Marilyn Okoro knows her gold medal at the UK Indoor Championships will count for nothing if she fails to reach next month’s world equivalent.

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The 27-year-old looked unbeatable at Sunday’s 800m in Sheffield, showing no signs of the injuries that have plagued her over the past three years, as she won her heat and then the final.

Okoro went out hard in the final, establishing a healthy lead after 400m but, despite never losing her grip on first place, she tired in the closing stages and recorded a time of two minutes 4.1 seconds.

That time left the Shaftesbury Barnet athlete just over half a second away from the World Indoor Championship qualifying standard that would have guaranteed her a trip to Istanbul in early March.

Now Okoro must clock 2:03.50 or lower at the Birmingham Grand Prix this weekend to book a place – and, despite her satisfaction with gold, it is a situation that she is all too aware of.

“I have missed a lot of racing over the last couple of years with injury, so it is nice to be back out there dominating races,” said Okoro.

“I think I have been eased back into the indoors now and it is the time for me to start running fast. I am going to have to if I want to go to the World Indoor Championships, which I do.

“Before the final I felt so tired – I was yawning and really struggling, but once that gun went the adrenaline took over and the rest was history.

“I am really looking forward to Birmingham at the weekend. It’s going to be a great event and I really think I can get faster.”

Okoro’s tactics on the indoor track are well known, with UK Athletics head coach Charles van Commenee labelling her naive after her disappointing performance at the European Indoor Championships in 2009.

On that occasion, Okoro opted for a fast pace and led for much of the race only to fade in the closing stages, eventually falling with the line beckoning and crawling to fourth place.

But she is not even contemplating the possibility of reliving that nightmare, adding: “I did a long stint of warm-weather training in South Africa and I am in great shape physically.

“I worked on a lot of stuff that I am not naturally good at, like long laps at speed, and I am pretty happy at how I managed to nail a few sessions.”

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