JOE FERGUSON will not defend his 200m title at the British Indoor Athletics Championships but is hoping that the outdoor season will bring more international recognition.

The 25-year-old sprinter from Darton won his first national title almost a year ago then helped Great Britain to a bronze medal in 4x100m mixed relay at the World Relay Championships in China.

But he had to pull out of the European Team Championships with an Achilles injury which eventually ended his season.

This year, Joe is not planning to compete in the indoor season at all as he is still in the final stages of recovery from the injury and instead he will focus on being ready for the Commonwealth Games and European Championships in the summer.

He said: “It would have been nice to have gone back there and defended the title and done the double. But it’s just part and parcel of the sport.

“I’m not too disappointed by it.

“I’ve already kind of let go of the indoor season because, I suppose, if we flash back to last year, the indoor season was brilliant then I ended up kind of sacrificing the outdoor season with the injury that I picked up.

“Hopefully, if we can do it the other way around this time, I’d much rather be at the Commonwealth Games outdoors this season, having sacrificed the indoors.

“I’m still young, so I’ve got plenty of time left to keep training hard and work towards my goals.

“As long as I reach my potential at some point in my career that’s what keeps me going – whether that’s this year, next year or the year after that.”

The Commonwealths are in Glasgow in late July then the Europeans in Birmingham in August.

“They are the two main goals for myself obviously with them being two home games as well.

“I made some good inroads in 2025 with the first British title and first world medal for the world relays.

“So it’s now exciting to be able to push on from there now that I’ve actually had a bit of proper experience in the senior team.”

Ferguson is still in the final stages of recovery from injury.

“It was an overuse injury. With all the constant running and training, my Achilles just started to get worn down a little bit. It got really inflamed and I ended up with a small tear right in the bottom of it.

“I’ve been working with the team at British Athletics. The physios there have been really helpful and the doctors who have put together a plan for me to get better.

“We’ve been focusing mainly on how to kind of work around the injury as opposed to just taking time out.

“I’ve been focusing more on getting stronger in the gym, doing a lot of heavy cardio work and doing low impact stuff – getting in the pool, doing stuff in sand. We’re just basically finding creative ways to still train hard.

“The aim is for me to get back into running properly by the end of February, which then will give me a good ten-week block of training to really get myself back in shape for the outdoor season, which will kick off around the start of May.”

As well as training full-time, Joe has set up a coaching academy called The Speed Operation which is based in Sheffield.

“It’s really fulfilling. We work with athletes from age seven to 30. We work with people from all different sports to get faster. We coach academy football players a lot. Then we have a track team from 15 upwards as well.”