Olympic hopeful Ryan Gregson will step up his London preparation by dropping back in distance at tonight's athletics meet in Hobart.Gregson (pictured) made a successful return to racing in the 1500m at Adelaide last weekend, beating nearest rival and training partner Jeff Riseley in the sprint to the finish in 3min47.84sec.The 21-year-old lamented the lack of pace during the early and middle stages and will take to the track for an 800m event in Tasmania to adjust to a faster race speed.It's all part of his plan in building towards an A-qualifier in Sydney in a fortnight, before the Olympic qualifying event in Melbourne next month."It will certainly help my training for an Olympic qualifying time," the former Bulli junior said."If I run a 1:46 over 800m, it makes running a 1:54 over the same distance in the 1500m event seem that much easier and it's just what I need after the slow pace in Adelaide."We didn't have any pacemakers in Adelaide and obviously no-one wanted to go to the front and do the hard work early, so it became a sprint between myself and Jeff."Gregson is expecting next week's 1500m race in Perth to unfold in a similar fashion, meaning he regards today's event of high importance for his Olympic bid.The Bulli runner is aiming for 3:35 in Sydney to almost certainly ensure his place among the athletics squad for London.Gregson's surge towards the Olympics comes after a difficult two years.At the world championships in South Korea, he finished eighth in the semi-final in 3.47.89, having battled a gastro problem and a calf injury prior to the race.Gregson, who holds the Australian record of 3:31.06, had an eight-month layoff in 2010 because of a stress fracture in his foot, forcing him to miss the Commonwealth Games.But an altitude training camp at Falls Creek in January helped him regain some confidence for his shot at a ticket to London."The training at altitude was really good for me," he said."I really get the confidence from training, but I haven't had more than a couple of months of solid preparation, so it's all in front of me."I've worked on my rehab and training programs and dropped back some of my workloads to try and make sure I stay fit."