The 22-year-old from Derry, who suffers from Stargardt disease, which affects his central vision, raced to victory in 10.32sec which is a 0.09 quicker than he has ever run before and is inside the qualifying time for the European Championships in Barcelona next month where he will be hoping to compete for Ireland.

The double Paralympic champion finished nearly half-a-second behind the runner-up Steven Colvert.

It is also the second fastest time ever by an Irish athlete behind only the 10.18 run by Paul Hession in 2007.

The performance puts Smyth in line to be picked for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games, which are due to open in New Delhi on October 3.

Smyth has been based in Florida for several months training alongside the former world 100m and 200m champion Tyson Gay, where they are both trained by Lance Brauman, who has adopted Smyth's coach Stephen Maguire as his assistant.

Smyth said: "I'm in the shape of my life and have no doubt I can go into the '20's.

"I have a few more races and will hopefully drop it down and get that race sharpness."

Smyth raced to victory in the 100m and 200m in the T13 catagroy at the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008.

He is hoping that the link-up with Gay will help him achieve his goal of becoming the first visually-impaired male athlete to compete in both the Olympics and Paralympics.

But first Smyth wants to concentrate on the rest of this year and the start of 211.

He said: "I have a busy year and my priorities are the European Champs, hopefully Commonwealths and the World Paralympic Championships [next] January as well."


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