Lisa Dobriskey says she has come so far that anything other than a medal at this summer’s European Championships would be a failure.

The 26-year-old Ashford AC runner is reigning Commonwealth Games 1,500m gold medallist and won a silver at the World Championships in Berlin last summer.

She is gearing up for a busy 2010 with the European Championships in Barcelona in July and the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi
in October.

She said: "To go from winning a medal at the World Championships to not winning one at the European Championships would probably be a step back and be seen as a failure."

She, however, said her main goal for the year would not come easily, with the field likely to include Spaniard Natalia Rodriguez, who finished first in Berlin but was stripped of a medal for shoving Ethiopian Gelete Burika.

Dobriskey said: "It will be a difficult challenge. It will be an interesting one to be in and with it being in Barcelona, she will have the home crowd behind her."

She revealed that a medal in Barcelona would eclipse one of her other aims for the year, breaking her personal best.

She said: "At the Europeans, any medal would outweigh a time. Obviously I would like to win and run a personal best but I wouldn’t mind running a slow time if I still won a medal."