Colchester's race-walking twins Dominic and Daniel King will compete in the 50k Walk at the German National Race Walking Championships this weekend, with the aim of securing a place in the Team GB team for the Rio Olympics.

They fly out to Andernach today hoping to secure the qualifying time set by UK Athletics.

The King brothers, who are training partners, need to clock at time of under four hours two minutes, in order to boost their chances of competing at next year’s Olympics.

And Colchester Harriers member Dominic – who competed at London 2012 – says the duo are feeling confident about their chances of achieving their target.

He said: “It’s a big weekend, because there aren’t many opportunities of this kind and I’m hoping to produce a good performance.

“My goal is to go under the Olympic time.

“I don’t think I’ve got the best out of myself in any of my past races and I’m yet to reach my top performance, so hopefully that will come in Germany.

“It’s very much an international race.

“There will be quite a few other countries represented, with competitors from the likes of Croatia, Honduras and France.

“The top German race walkers will be a few minutes up on us but the good thing is that there will be good competition pulling us along.

“50k walking is not easy by yourself, so if you have other people doing a similar pace it can help push you along.

“I’m feeling confident with my technique and I don’t think our preparation for it could have gone much better.

“The long training sessions we’ve done have been my best ever.

“With the schedule we’ve got with full-time jobs and family commitments, I feel I’ve done the best I could have done.”

Dominic has consulted the University of Essex’s sports science department, in a bid to cover all aspects of his performance.

“I’ve also been doing some work looking at other elements that can help performance and one of them is psychology,” added Dominic, who competed for England at the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games.