Jake Wightman can become Britain's greatest middle distance runner - Lord Coe

Lord Coe believes Jake Wightman can chase world domination and has the potential to become Britain's greatest middle distance runner.

New world champion Wightman claimed Great Britain's first gold of the World Championships with a shock 1500m win in Eugene on Tuesday.

He is now targeting the 1500m title at the Commonwealth Games for Scotland and is preparing to run the 800m at the European Championships in August.

Wightman also only has 12 months until the next World Championships in Budapest and two years until the Paris Olympics, with World Athletics president Coe - arguably the best middle distance runner of his generation - aware of what the 28-year-old can do.

"This is potentially a real purple patch for him because of the way the calendar is now. He is defending that next year and then, hopefully, be in great shape for the Olympics a year later," he said.

"People go 'two years' but it’s not two years. That’s one year and three months of intense training and all the other stuff. It’s no time at all. If he can log that he could technically end up as the most successful British middle distance runner we have ever had."

Double Olympic 1500m champion Coe has also been Wightman's unofficial adviser, offering him help while daughter, Maddie, has a quirky link to his mum Susan.

"I’m not going to portray myself as his coach or anything like that but we chat and have for a long time, for four or five years," he said. "Remember he is a Loughborough boy too. We’ve sort of come together since he’s left Loughborough.

"Interestingly we’ve had lengthy conversations over the last couple of years about whether he doubles up (with the 800m and 1500m) or not. He does need to do the 800m training and he’s clearly done that.

"The other