PARALYMPIC athlete Mark Brown has been selected for the World Championships at Lille in France next month.

The arm amputee who represents Clayton Harriers and Blackburn Harriers won the silver medal for the marathon at the Sydney Paralympics two years ago and was hoping to compete over the distance this summer.

He ran the Bath Half Marathon as a trial back in March, and having beaten his target time of 75 minutes with 72:53 he was expecting to be chosen.

However, some of the competing nations have no arm amputees who are marathon specialists, and it has been decided to make the 5,000 metres the longest event.

It is not the ideal distance for Mark who, having turned 40 last month, feels more comfortable with the longer distances. However he has a distinguished record in the shorter event having taken the silver in the Worlds four years ago and fourth in the Paralympics in 1996.

He tested his speed at Trafford last month where he passed the halfway mark of a 10,000 metres race in 16mins 02secs.

The selectors were looking for an improvement and it came in the Northern Men's League match at Burnley where he ran the 5,000 metres for Blackburn Harriers in 15:45.

Then Mark suffered a setback last weekend when competing at a BMC meeting at Solihull.

He appeared to be heading for a sub 15:30 time, but suffered a slight hamstring problem and dropped out with 1,000 metres to go.

It isn't thought to be serious and he will be fit to travel to Austria this weekend for a week of training at a camp run by the British Olympic Association.