Harrogate's George Mills in the 'right space' to win global medals after smashing Sir Mo Farah's 5000m record

The 26-year-old ran a time of 12 minutes 46.59 seconds as he finished fourth in Thursday's Diamond League meeting in Oslo, taking a whopping 12 seconds off his own personal best.

In doing so, Mills broke Farah's 14-year record of 12:53.11, which had stood since 2011 and just narrowly missed out on the European record of 12:45.01.

Indeed, the former Saint Aidan's School pupil looked on track to go on and win what was a seriously fast event and was in the lead heading into the final 400 metres.

But, he was overtaken by America's Nico Young, who went on to take first place in a time of 12:45.27, and then the Ethiopian pair of Biniam Mehary and Kuma Girma.

And disappointed though he was not to hang on for victory, Mills was able to take huge positives from his performance.

"The race was stacked and billed as a world record attempt, so to be in the mix was important," he said. "My target for the season is a global medal and this shows I am in the right space.

"The national record was definitely one of the things I came for. I did not get the other two – the European record and the win – but I was close to both and I've taken 12 seconds off my personal best, so I am delighted with that.”

Mills, who is the son of former England and Leeds United defender, Danny Mills, has enjoyed a decent year to date.

In early February, he set a new British indoor record on his first-ever competitive outing at 3000m, when he ran a super-fast time of 7:27.92 at the Meeting de l’Eure in Val-de-Reuil, France.

Three weeks later, the former Harrogate Harrier broke another 3000m record, at the British Indoor Athletics Championships, as he clocked 7:40.16, beating two-time defending champion James West in the process.

That performance earned Mills qualification for the European and World Indoor Championships, and he went on to claim silver behind Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the European 3000m final.

He was however unable to compete in the Worlds in Nanjing after a virus left him bed-ridden and forced him to withdraw.