DANNY Talbot’s road to Rio got off to a flying start as he scorched to the second fastest 100m of his career in America.

Racing at the NTC/PURE Athletics Spring Invitational meeting in Clermont, Florida, the Trowbridge Tornado gave himself an early birthday present – he turned 25 on Sunday – with a time of 10.15secs to finish runner-up in the final.

That was just one one-hundredth of a second outside his 2014 lifetime best of 10.14secs and as a further sign of encouragement, he also beat British sprint colleagues James Ellington and Harry Aikines-Areetey.

“Clermont went really well,” said Talbot.

“I feel in great shape at the moment. The race was a bit scrappy too, generally like most of my season openers in previous years.”

For Talbot it was not only his first race of the year but also his first since switching to new coach Benke Blomkvist in the new year after previously working with Dan Cossins.

The pair have been working intensively on Talbot’s technique during a six-week spell of warm-weather training in Florida, with special focus on starts and speed.

In particular, Talbot has relished sessions alongside former World Indoor 60m champion Richard Kilty, who has been at the same training camp and that will have done his starts no harm at all.

Talbot had initially pencilled in a 100m at the Tom Jones Invitational Meeting, in Gainesville, the previous weekend but pulled out of that due to muscle soreness and not wanting to risk an injury.

On the evidence of his 10.14secs, it was clearly nothing too serious and Talbot returned home this week excited about his prospects of his first 200m, which has been scheduled for Ostrava at the end of the month.

“I’m really looking forward to running the 200m now knowing my speed is as good as it has ever been,” added Talbot.

Coincidentally, Talbot’s PB of 10.14secs came after he ran 10.17secs at the same meeting in Clermont two years ago so that suggests he could get closer to 10.10secs or below - the sort of speed he is looking for in his bid to better his 200m best of 20.27secs, which he set at the World Championships last year.

If he can move to that level then it will be a giant step towards securing his place in the British team for the Olympics in Rio later this summer.