TEENAGE track sensation Jessica Judd will start her campaign for World Youth Championships glory tomorrow.

The 16-year-old, from Canvey, is for the first time testing herself against the best junior athletes in the world.

She begins her 800m challenge tomorrow afternoon when she races in what she hopes will be the first of three rounds at the championships, being held in Lille, France.

“It is going to be a great experience,” said Judd, who has just finished her GCSE’s at Castle View School, Canvey.

“I started off the season just wanting to get the qualifying time and once I had done that I was really happy.

“Now it’s got here it’s still a little bit strange. It’s really weird to think I’m going to the World Championships to compete for Great Britain.”

Judd was typically understated when revealing she was delighted to just get the qualifying time to run at the championships.

In fact, such is her dominance on the domestic scene, she has had her pick of what distances to run in France.

This year she has run the fastest 1,500m and 3,000m ever run by a British under-17 woman and the second fastest 800m.

She could have chosen to compete over any of those three distances in Lille, but in the end plumped to run the half-mile, where her 2m 2.70s ranks her second in the world.

“My coach has told me to take race each race as it comes,” said Judd, who competes for Chelmsford AC.

“I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself, but it’s going to be different to anything I’ve experienced before.

“We’ve looked at the times from the last World Championships and those who qualified from the heats were running 2m 7s and those getting past the semi-final were running 2m 5s. So it’s going to be very competitive throughout, which is something I’ve not had before. "

FULL STORY IN WEDNESDAY'S ECHO