RICHARD BUCK said he had achieved his “life’s goal” after making the Great Britain team for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

The 25-year-old former Pickering schoolboy was selected yesterday (Tuesday) as one of eight runners in Team GB’s 4x400 metres relay squad that will go for gold at the Olympic Stadium, in London, next month.

Having lost his UK Athletics funding and been forced to take a job at Tesco to make ends meet, the sprinter, who claimed a sixth international medal when taking silver with the GB 4x400m relay team at the weekend’s European Championships in Helsinki, felt the sacrifices he had made to get to this point had been worthwhile.

“Everything I have done has been focused around this,” Buck said.

“This has been my life’s goal. I haven’t thought about anything past this moment. After the European Championships I was optimistic about making the team but you never let yourself relax.”

Buck is joined by Luke Lennon-Ford, Rob Tobin, Jack Green, Dai Greene, Nigel Levine, Martyn Rooney and Conrad Williams in the squad and is determined to play a key role as the Olympics returns to Britain for the first time since 1948.

“I have been working hard but a lot of the guys have been putting the work in,” added Buck. “It’s been an incredibly competitive year and the times I have put up would have put me to the forefront of the rankings in any other year.

“It is great for me to have progressed and this (competitiveness) makes our chances of getting a medal that much better. I will try to prove my worth to the team and I would love to be in that final four.”

Buck ran the anchor leg as GB claimed silver in Helsinki and, after making his first individual final outdoors – finishing fifth – he is confident of improving upon the 45.83 seconds he ran in the first round.

“It was a brilliant week,” he said of his exploits in Finland. “I am a bit shot now having raced back-to-back at the Olympic trials and the Europeans and that has had a huge physical effect on my body.

“It has been worthwhile. I showed the selectors that I have got guts, that I am reliable and can post a consistent time again and again. It is brilliant to get another medal. They are what I am going to remember my career by.”

Buck led home the GB quartet behind Belgium in the Finnish capital following an eventful few days on the track. His quick time in the first round of the individual event was hit by controversy, with Buck initially disqualified after having been judged to have run outside of his lane.

An appeal saw him reinstated and he finished second in his semi-final before narrowly missing out on a medal in the final – with his fifth place finish coming despite a late charge in the last 100 metres.

In the relay final, Buck initially took off in front but was unable to hold off the challenge of Belgium’s Kevin Borlee, the fastest man in Europe this season, and was reeled in with 150 yards left to run.

He had to dig deep as Germany closed in the last 50 metres but held on bravely to claim a much-deserved podium position.