Paul developed into a world class sprint hurdler in 1994 when a highly successful season culminated with a Commonwealth bronze medal in Victoria, Canada. An outstanding junior Paul collected his first International medal, a bronze, at the European junior Championships at Birmingham in 1987. He became the World No. 1 at junior level in 1988 although he was placed a disappointing fifth at the World junior Championships in Canada that year.

In 1993 Paul switched to 400m Hurdles, and subsequently won the Welsh senior title twice, clocking a personal best time of 51.30 seconds. In 1994 Paul returned to the 110m Hurdles, dramatically reducing his personal best time from 13.97 to 13.53 seconds. He was AAA’s runner-up to Andy Tulloch and made his GB senior debut against the USA at Gateshead in July. He also clocked an outstanding 45.9 seconds for a 400m relay leg at the Commonwealth Games. Coached by Linford Christie, Paul improved again in 1995 after a spell of training in Tampa. He won the AAA Indoor 60m hurdles title and went on to clock a time of 7.78 seconds in Madrid, his best time of the season. After an uneventful 1996 season in which he just missed out on a place in the GB Olympic team Paul arrived in Australia for a demanding winter training period in Sydney, in preparation for the 1997 season with his coach Linford Christie. Whilst in Sydney Paul finally decided to switch to the 400mH. His first year in the event culminated with third in the World Championship trials. He qualified for the GB team in a personal best time of 50.14 secs but unfortunately just outside the qualifying time for the World Championships.