A PHYSIOTHERAPIST who was saved by a heart transplant 21 years ago is about to compete in his second world championship games.

Bromley Cross father-of-two Robert Hodgkiss will be jetting off to Malaga in Spain to take part in the World Transplant Games 2017.

The High Meadows resident will be competing in the 50m backstroke,100m backstroke, discus and shot-put in the aged 50-59 category.

It comes after recent success for Mr Hodgkiss in the British and European championships last year but he has not competed in the biennial global tournament since 1999, just three years after his life-saving surgery.

The 51-year-old said: "I am looking forward to it. It is difficult to know how I might do. The last two world games were held in South Africa and Argentina so a lot of people didn't compete because of how expensive it was.

"It is hard to predict but I am looking forward to going out there. Medals would be a fantastic bonus but I think it will be tough."

Mr Hodgkiss was diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy in June 1996 after suffering a heart attack and a mini-stroke.

He underwent heart transplant surgery at Freeman Hospital in Newcastle on July 27, 1996, and was discharged in August just before his daughter Bethany's first birthday.

The former Turton High School head boy, who trained as a dentist at Newcastle University, continues to have three-monthly check-ups in Newcastle and will take immunosupressive drugs for the rest of his life.

Hand tremors are a side-effect of those drugs, meaning he had to quit his career as a dentist.

But he retrained and works as a palliative care physiotherapist at Bolton Hospice.

He also refused to give up his love for swimming and athletics and started competing in the transplant games.

At his first world championships in 1999, he won a silver medal in the 50m backstroke and a bronze in the 4x4 400m track relay.

And at last year's European Heart and Lung Transplant Games in Helsinki he won four gold medals in the 50m backstroke, 50m freestyle, 100m backstroke and 4x50m freestyle relay, as well as bronze in the 100m on the track.

His exploits helped Great Britain top the medal table with 71 medals, 41 of those gold.

Mr Hodgkiss is trying to play down expectations this time around but he has still been training hard with Bolton Harriers.

He said: "Cardiovascular events are obviously hard when you have had a heart or lung transplant and in these games I will be competing against people who have had other kinds of transplants.

"But the whole idea of the games is to promote the benefits of organ donation. It shows just how much of a difference it can make to people's lives.

"I would have been dead 20 years ago but now because of the heart transplant I had, I have been able to do all these things and see my children grow up."

The World Transplant Games 2017 begin on Sunday, June 25 and end on Sunday, July 2

He will be competing in the 50m backstroke on the Wednesday, 100m backstroke on Thursday, shot-put on Friday and discus on the Saturday.