BELFAST’S STEPHEN SCULLION has qualified for this summer’s Tokyo Olympics after finishing fifth in the Houston Marathon on Sunday.

The 31-year-old beat his personal best by nine seconds to cross the finish line in a time of 2:11:52.

Scullion’s time was 22 seconds outside of the automatic qualification time, but he booked his seat on the plane to the Far East by way of achieving a top-five finish in a Gold Label road race.

His previous personal best of 2:12:01 was enough to earn him a runners-up spot behind Morocco’s Othmane El Goumri at the Dublin Marathon in October, but placed him well down the pecking order in Texas; 10 competitors in the field had previously run a 2:9:30 or better.

But that couldn’t prevent Scullion from sealing his spot in Tokyo. Elated, he tweeted: “I don’t mean to brag, but 5th in a PB 2.11.52 and the wind was beating the sh*t outta me.. Top 5 gold label is olympics..”

He added a tribute to his trainer-slash-agen, Stephen Haas: “WE did that @HAASruns – F*cking animal.”