Nicola Sanders will be given the Dame Kelly Holmes treatment in her build-up to the World Championships this summer if Ian Stewart, the country’s leading meeting director, can persuade her camp to agree to his plan. Stewart wants Sanders, the European indoor 400 metres champion, to follow the same route that took Holmes to a middle-distance golden double at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Sanders smashed the British and Commonwealth record to win the European title in Birmingham, announcing herself as a medal contender for the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, in August.

“We did a great job for Kelly,” Stewart, who assembles the fields for the domestic televised meetings, said. “We set up the perfect racing plan. She ran all of our races and every race got slightly tougher. The idea was to get her to Athens in perfect shape with morale high.”

Stewart will talk to the Sanders camp about adopting a similar strategy, climaxing in a race against Sanya Richards, the world No 1, in the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace on August 3.

Stewart gave warning, however, against expecting too much too soon from the 24-year-old. “She has come almost out of nowhere and had not won a big title before the weekend,” Stewart said.