RICHARD Buck has already turned his attentions to the Olympic Games and getting gold at London 2012 after a picking up a silver medal on a dramatic last day of the World Indoor Championships.

The former Pickering schoolboy failed to reach the individual 400 metres final in Turkey but he had high hopes of 4x400m relay gold – and for about an hour it seemed he had got his wish, despite finishing second on the anchor leg in Sunday’s grand finale.

But the Great Britain quartet, initially promoted to first place on a technicality, were finally awarded silver behind the USA amid chaos in Istanbul.

Buck, who represents City of York Athletics Club, said afterwards: “The next stop is London 2012 and we’ll have to make sure we get gold there now. We gave the Americans a good run for their money and it’s a performance that bodes well for the Olympics.

“The indoor season has been great and the indoor Aviva Series was great preparation ahead of the World Indoors and gave me the perfect chance to compete at my best – but now it’s about London 2012.”

Buck had insisted it was GB error, not the USA’s infringement, that cost them a relay gold.

Gil Roberts of the USA crossed the line 0.78 seconds ahead of former Lady Lumley’s School pupil Buck but the judges ruled he had contravened the rules by taking it upon himself to switch lanes while waiting for the baton, after team-mate Manteo Mitchell had overtaken GB’s Michael Bingham on the final bend. Great Britain were therefore bumped up to gold, but the USA appealed on the grounds that the officials themselves had initially put Roberts in the wrong lane – and they were reinstated as gold medallists.

But Buck, 25, believes the reason he wasn’t celebrating his first major gold, having already won two major indoor bronzes and two silvers, was a mistake by Great Britain.

“We really wanted to get the gold and that’s what we came here looking to do because we’ve got a very strong squad,” he said.

“I was going after him (Roberts) and thought at one stage that I could creep up on him but he held on and so we’ll take the silver.

“It makes us hungry. It’s another major championship under our belts and another experience and another mistake to learn from.

“I think I picked up the baton a bit too far back and that knocked our momentum but we’ll learn from it and make sure we’re ready for the summer.”

With Buck, Bingham, Conrad Williams and Nigel Levine securing silver, Great Britain’s Aviva backed team laid down a marker for London 2012 with their most successful world indoor championships ever, claiming nine medals to finish second on the medal table behind the dominant USA. “It’s the best team performance of all-time so we’ve every reason to travel home happy,” said Charles van Commenee, the head coach of the Aviva GB&NI team.