Oxford's Hannah England set her sights on world glory after retaining her 1500m title at the Aviva UK Trials and Championship in Birmingham on Saturday.

The result confirmed England’s place in the Great Britain team at the World Championships in Korea, which start on August 27.

Stacey Smith was the early leader, opening a gap of 15 metres on the field, with England and her main rival, Lisa Dobriskey, content to contest the second and third places.

By the bell, England and Dobriskey had all but caught up Smith and opened a large gap on the other runners.

“My race plan had been to run the first lap controlled and then to pay attention to any moves,” said an elated England.

“But when Stacey went out so fast that all that went out the window.

“I thought Stacey had gone off too fast and I was just trying to reel her in slowly and luckily we caught her.”

When Dobriskey took the lead with 300 m to go England stayed with her, overtaking her on the finishing straight and held on to win in 4.07.05.

After overtaking Smith, England said she just concentrated on racing Dobriskey.

She added: “I didn’t want to go too early. Lisa has a very strong finish and I wanted to be with her and absorb it before throwing my own weapons at her.”

England paid tribute to Dobriskey who had won silver at the 2009 World Championships and taking fourth in the 2008 Olympics and the 2010 Europeans.

England said: “It is fantastic having an athlete like Lisa in the race.

“Dobriskey really inspires you to run faster and I’m just hoping I can follow in her footsteps on a bigger stage.”

England added: “I’m really happy with where I am at. If you had told me last winter that I would run 4.01 in the summer, I would have been over the moon and I really believe I can build on that form up to the world championships.

“I certainly haven’t over-raced or peaked too early as I have only had four (outdoor) races this year because of the Achilles injury. So hopefully, I can run even better.”

England runs in the 1500m at the Crystal Palace Diamond League next weekend, which is likely to be her final race before setting off to Korea for the GB preparation camp and the World Championships.

Meanwhile, in yesterday’s action, double European champion Mo Farah clocked 14.00.72 to win the 5,000m title.

World bronze medallist Jenny Meadows won her first national outdoor crown in the 800m, finishing ahead of Emma Jackson and Marilyn Okoro in a time of 2.02.28.