Oxford City's Olympic star Nathan Douglas feels like he has won the Lottery as he approaches his big day this Friday.

Nathan Douglas

And the 21-year-old triple-jumper effectively has - because it was Lottery funding which got him to Athens.

It helped him to make a giant leap from sixth in the UK rankings last summer, with a lifetime best of 16.30m, to victory in this season's Norwich Union Olympic trials with 16.95m.

Douglas has put his great improvement down to the value of the UK Athletics 'world class cotential crogramme', funded by Sport England from the National Lottery.

"The main thing that made me improve is the fact that I was able to see my coach more often this year because I have been on 'potential' funding," he said. "It's not huge money but it's a massive help."

He passed his driving test last November, bought an N-reg Vauxhall Corsa in December (the month of his 21st birthday) - and has been able to travel three times a week to his coach, Ted King, the UK Athletics High Performance Centre Manager at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium.

Initially, he had only a 45 minutes' journey each away, while he finished his sports science degree course at Loughborough University.

Now he is living back home in Oxford and it can take 90 minutes for his little Corsa - "I haven't got the money for a Ferrari yet," he smiles - to chug up to the West Midlands centre.

But the regular trips were well worthwhile because, in addition to the advice of coach King, "getting physio and massage on a regular basis boosted everything for me".

And the time and effort all proved worthwhile at the Norwich Union Trials in Manchester when Douglas hopped, stepped and jumped from obscurity all the way to the Olympic Games.

Now he is ranked No 2 in the UK and 29th in the world.

After this week settling into the Olympics preparation camp in Cyprus, he is all geared up for the qualifying event in the Olympic Stadium on Friday.