Olympic sprinter Adam Gemili was pipped to the post in a race that really tested his metal... against a robot!

It came after BRIAN the Robot put out a challenge to the world-class athlete on Twitter.

Confused.com’s mascot approached the 19-year-old, who then agreed to race in a 100m sprint.

This comes as part of the Olympian’s preparations for a summer of athletics in next month’s 2013 World Championships in Russia.

BRIAN beat Gemili with a time of 10.1 seconds, a fraction of a second faster than the Dartford star’s 10.2 seconds... but the metal contestant was mounted on rails.

Gemili took part in the London 2012 Olympics, coming third in the semi-finals of the 100m sprint – less than half a second short of qualifying for the finals.

The sportsman is hoping to increase his track time ready for Russia and next year’s Commonwealth Games.

He says he found the experience a useful one for his training: “I think today was a great warm-up for me to try and see where I’ll be and how much more I need to train.

"I think a little bit more training is needed because BRIAN did beat me!”

If more motivation was needed, Olympic long jumper Greg Rutherford recently suggested he wanted to compete as a sprinter this summer - with Gemili in his sights.

"Let’s just hope he (BRIAN) doesn’t put on his spikes and decide to change to an athletics career!” - Adam Gemili

“Greg has a PB (personal best) of 10.2 which is really, really quick. But I think it would be great if he does a couple of races with us, and I wish him the best of luck with that.”

Gemili has not dismissed the idea of more races with robots, even speculating that if humans vs. robots Olympics were to exist in the future he might be in trouble.

He said: “It was nice to run against someone different to a human being. I think the way technology is going this could be the future: running against robots or training with them. You never know what could happen.

"Let’s just hope he doesn’t put on his spikes and decide to change to an athletics career!”