STEPHEN Miller has vowed to treat his fourth IPC World Athletics Championship appearance the same as his first as he attempts to maintain his run of returning home with gold from every one.

The 30-year-old is one of Britain’s most decorated track and field athletes, having won three Paralympic, three world and two European club titles since making his senior British debut in 2005.

Miller will have a score to settle, as well as a fourth world gold to claim in New Zealand, after failing to top the podium on his last major international appearance at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008.

He was forced to be content with club silver in the Far East as Tunisia’s Mourad Idoudi stripped him of the crown that he won for the first time in Atlanta in 1996 and retained in Sydney and Athens.

And Miller, whose one and only outing at Queen Elizabeth II Park will come on Tuesday, insists this major international appearance will be no different to those that have preceded it.

“There has been quite a big break since Beijing and with these championships being held in New Zealand we have had to wait a little bit longer,”

said Miller.

“With the seasons being the other way around in New Zealand as well, it is that bit later than usual, but I am really looking forward to it all starting.

“The timings are the same for everybody and I’m as excited about competing at these championships as I was at the first World Championships I ever went to.

“To be going for my fourth gold medal in a row is an exciting thing in itself because I don’t know anybody else who has won four in a row.

“Being selected for the Aviva GB & NI team is the ultimate stepping stone for me towards my dream of winning gold at London 2012.”

Miller and fellow North- East athletes Kenny Churchill and Hazel Robson are part of a 40-strong British team currently in New Zealand benefiting from an Aviva-funded holding camp in Auckland, prior to arriving in Christchurch.

Teesside javelin thrower Churchill is a legend in his own right in the GB Paralympic world, veteran of five Games and with five medals to his name in total, but he finished an uncharacteristic sixth in Beijing.

And with the long-term goal of the London 2012 Paralympics in mind, the 35-yearold is desperate to set the record straight.

“I have been out here for almost two weeks now and I am getting really fired up. I am raring to go and I just want to get out there and get back among the medals,” said Churchill.

“With London 2012 about 18 months away this World Championships is a really important competition and it is bound to have an effect on what happens in London.

“I feel in the best shape and I am as confident as I have been for the first time since I won in Athens in 2004.”

And with the peculiarities of the athletics calendar ensuring a long wait between Beijing and New Zealand, Jarrow and Hebburn AC ace Robson admits she’s itching to get going.

“This competition is really the one I have been looking towards and one I have been working towards since the Beijing Paralympics,” said Robson, who will compete in the 100m and 200m.

“It was the next really big competition and I have been working hard to get here.

“It has paid off and I just can’t wait to start racing.”