After dabbling with the pentathlon and 800 metres, Minshull settled on becoming a one-lap hurdler and ran the second fastest time by a British athlete this season – 48.87 seconds – in Belgium last month.

He is currently ranked 39th in the world.

“As I got into running more, the hurdles seem to be good and I’m good at four [hundred metres flat], so why not try four hurdles?” he said.

“It’s not easy especially when you’re coming down this home straight with a lactic [acid build up]. There’s no other event really like it, but I feel like from doing multi-events I’ve sort of got the knack of hurdling.”

With the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow before the European Championships are held in the UK for the first time, in Birmingham in August, Minshull said challenging the best in those events was “in his sights”.

“They are both on my radar.

“The Commonwealths were in Australia before, so it makes it a bit easier being in Glasgow and Birmingham.

“Birmingham does kind of feel like home to me.”

Minshull will also be putting out of his mind a fall in the home straight when well set for a medal in last year’s British Championships in Birmingham, when he competes on the same track.

“I fell over but I felt like I paced the race really well. It was really windy on the back straight and you can get that here sometimes,” he said.

“I know how to deal with it but I measured myself well for the first 200 and then I came pushing through going into the home straight, but I felt so good, I literally just clipped hurdle 10.

“Hopefully I can amend that this year because I know I know gold was on the cards last year, so it’s definitely on this year.”