IT would be fair to say Andrew Butchart was more than a little nervous in the hours before the biggest race of his season so far. “Pooing my pants,” the Scottish 5000-metres record-holder said when asked how he had felt yesterday morning as he looked forward to the final of the British Championships. “Pooing my pants.”

He need not have been so fearful, as he booked his place in the Great Britain team for Rio with a commanding victory. On the shoulders of the leaders for the first two-thirds of the race, the 24-year-old moved decisively in front with four laps to go, and was never in danger of being caught.

With two qualifying times already, Butchart ‘only’ needed a win at Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium to get automatic selection and join Mo Farah on the plane to Brazil. His time of 13mins 44secs was more than three and a half seconds clear of second-placed Tom Farrell, who must now wait to see if he is added at the selectors’ discretion.

“For the past four days I’ve been a nervous wreck, but I think the nerves definitely helped,” Butchart continued. “To get it done and win the British and know that I’m going to Rio - it hasn’t really sunk in yet at all

“To win the British title - you can’t beat that in this country. I’m going to the Olympic Games and do my best and hopefully get my name out there and prove to the other guys that I’m going to be in it for a while and I’m somebody to compete with. I’ll give it my all and I’ll train as hard as I have been in the last few months and just see what happens.”

The Central AC athlete is the fifth Scot to get into the team for Rio, joining 10,000m runner Beth Potter and marathon trio Callum and Derek Hawkins and Tsegai Tewelde, and he will be back at the Alexander Stadium today in the hope he can see more join him.

“Hopefully this is the start of a good weekend,” he added. “It’s nice to get it done and then enjoy watching the athletics. Tomorrow I’ll come back to the track and watch the guys and cheer them on, and, fingers crossed, they all get through as well.”

Scottish discus record-holder Nick Percy won his event with a best throw of 60.43m, just 9cm clear of silver medallist Daniel Greaves. Olympic qualifying is still some way off in his case, with 65m being the minimal requirement, but the University of Nebraska student remains hopeful of significant improvement in the coming weeks.

“It’s unbelievable to be British champion,” Percy said. “I did not expect that coming into the competition. Hopefully a big throw will come in the next couple of weeks. I’ve been over 60m four times, twice at competitions like this one, so hopefully I can keep this momentum going and find a metre or two more.

Eilidh Doyle won her 400m hurdles heat with ease, crossing the line some 15m clear in 46.30sec after slowing down considerably in the home straight. “It was quite messy, but I don’t think the wind helped,” she said. “I wasn’t really sure how to run it – I thought we were going to have nice conditions, so I was going to go for it and try and get a good time.

“I decided halfway to just do enough to qualify so I did switch it off a bit in the second half. First and foremost you want to qualify, but it’s nice to do it with a bit of authority. Hopefully I’ll come out and do something a bit better tomorrow.”

In truth, it will not need to be too much better for Doyle to clinch the title this afternoon. Her closest competitor, Shona Richards, was almost two seconds slower in winning heat three, and with Perri Shakes-Drayton competing in the flat 400 instead, there is no-one else who should come close to challenging the Scot. Mhairi Patience of Victoria Park was third in her heat and missed out on the final by a single place - a fate that also befell former world champion Dai Greene in the men’s event.

Teenager Ben Greenwood and Guy Learmonth are both through to the 800m final on the third and last day of the trials, with Greenwood having won the heat and Learmonth going through as a fastest loser. Laura Muir is also safely through to the final of the 1500m after winning her heat, as are Jo Moultrie and Sarah Inglis. Six Scots have made it into the men’s 1,500m final: Chris O’Hare, Jake Wightman, Neil Gourley, Josh Kerr, Cameron Boyek and Ben Stevenson.

Lynsey Sharp cruised through to her 800m final, safely winning her heat in 2:01.86. Jamie Bowie made it into the 400m final, albeit only as a fastest loser.

The men’s 100m, a traditional highlight of the three-day meeting, was won by James Dasaolu from James Ellington and CJ Ujah. All three went under 10sec.