England's hammer hero Mick Jones can envisage himself on an Olympic podium, but fears a lack of funding will stop him from reaching his potential.

The Crawley-based veteran calls himself an amateur and never expects to make any money from his sport.

But he claimed yesterday, before collecting his Commonwealth Games medal, that with more funding throughout his career he could have challenged for an Olympic gold.

Jones hit out at the levels of lottery funding for throwers. He believes his talent will remain untapped because he has not thrown more than 80 metres, the distance required by Sport England to put him in the category of athletes receiving maximum lottery funding of up to £27,000 a year.

Jones said: "Take me away and put me in Jonathan (Edwards), Steve (Backley) or Paula's (Radcliffe) shoes and I'd be as good as them."

He says he would love extra money to prove that he could do it.

"I would have walked in here as British record holder. I would have gone to the Olympics Games and I would have reached the final," he added. "I would have been, will be, as good as that. That's my belief."

There were more medals for English athletes in last night, Chris Rawlinson leading the way with gold in the 400m hurdles.