Frustrated Caines targets Palace coup

British team selectors were facing a new row today after Daniel Caines criticised them for picking Mark Richardson even though he has not run the official 400metres qualifying time for next month's World Championships in Edmonton.

Richardson, who won last week's World Championship trials in Birmingham, was the only name to be pencilled in for the event by selectors on Tuesday.

They made their decision even though he has been out for more than six months through a drugs ban. Despite winning the trials he is still struggling to find top form and has yet to achieve the qualifying mark of 45.72 seconds. World indoor champion Caines says he, and not Richardson, should have been the first name on the team sheet. He made the necessary mark when he ran 45.58 secs in his only race of the season in Seville in June.

Injury, however, has prevented him from building on the gold medal he won at the World indoors in Lisbon last March. That's why selectors left him out of the team announced on Tuesday and told him he had one week to prove his fitness.

Now Caines faces a tense race-off with Iwan Thomas, Jamie Baulch and Mark Hylton at the Norwich Union British Grand Prix on Sunday for the last two places in the team. Last year Thomas labelled selectors "crooked" after he was left out of the squad for the Sydney Games, claiming he had been promised extra time to overcome injury problems.

Now Caines has criticised them for forcing him to race for his place at Palace on Sunday.

He said: "It's a bit disappointing the selectors picked Mark straight away. They shouldn't have done that until after Palace. I have done the qualification as far as I'm concerned."