Sussex athletics star Mick Jones was last night putting a brave face on his Olympic games hammer blow.

The county record holder from Crawley has been told he missed a place in the British Olympic team by just a few hours.

Jones set a new county best of 75.94m in the hammer at Crawley last Wednesday.

Details of the competition and the result card were faxed to the British team management in Melbourne, where they were already settling in for the Games.

But the information arrived just too late for the selection deadline of midnight, Australian time.

Jones took the news philosophically.

He said: "At least I threw the distance. I have known that I had it in me. I had been beating 75m regularly in training but just failing to reach it in competition.

"Naturally I would have loved to have gone to Sydney but I now have the mark behind me and, although I am now 37, that is not really old for a hammer thrower.

"I certainly plan to have another go to get to Athens in four years' time."

In the meantime, Jones is targeting the World Championships next year and in 2003 as well as the European and Common-wealth Games in 2002.