IT IS 23 years since Zola Budd arrived in Britain from South Africa and caused an athletics storm: from the protests about the speed with which she was given citizenship to the drama of her infamous clash with Mary Decker at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.

But with controversy came landmarks. One of the first records that Budd set here was the UK age 17 best for 1500m, a time of 4min 10.82sec.

It had lasted more than a generation until eight days ago when one of the brightest young talents in this country showed that the road to the Olympics in London 2012 - and beyond, for a teenager of immense maturity - is looking good.

Steph Twell will not be 18 until August but she already has her athletics life mapped out to such an extent that she is planning to run in the marathon at the Olympics in 2020.

“At the moment I am running over 1500m and 3,000m,” she says. “But I would like to do the 5,000m, the 10,000m and possibly the marathon. I will turn 23 during the Games in London. I would like to get to the final at those Olympics, and I am going to carry on progressing to the Olympics beyond and possibly do a marathon in 2020.”

Close to midnight on Friday in Lille, Twell, Britain’s European junior cross-country champion and a student at Farnborough sixth form college, is reflecting on the events of the Metropole meeting that evening where she has finished 10th in senior company in a race in which her left heel was clipped out of her spikes by an opponent. “I was wearing half a shoe, it was not that easy to find a rhythm and it was something else to focus upon,” she says. “But it was all part of the experience. It was not the best, but it was an amusing story. It has taught me to toughen up and be more assertive in races.”

Under the guidance of coach Mick Woods, who has been with her since she started training in Aldershot when she was 10 years old, after she moved to the area because her dad was stationed there in the army, Twell has made amazing progress.

And at the Open Catalan championships in Barcelona, she overtook Budd in the record books in an event at the stadium that hosted the Olympics in 1992.

Twell, who won the 1500m in 4min 10.71sec, said: “I know that Zola used to train at our club. It was good to bring the title home. I would like to meet her one day.”