BOLTON'S top athlete's Olympic Games dream has been shattered by injury.

Track star Stuart Stokes was virtually assured of going to Athens when his training was halted by an achilles tendon injury.

Stuart, aged 26, has been Great Britain's number one 3,000m steeplechaser for the last three years and finished fourth in the Commonwealth Games two years ago.

He just missed out on the 2000 Sydney Games but was fully expected to run the Athens qualifying time of 8.25 after a successful winter's warm weather training in South Africa, and a new lifestyle, which has seen him move from his home in Bradshaw to live and train with a group of international athletes in London.

"Everything was going fantastically well and then I got this injury," he said. "It is the first injury I have ever had, and it is depressing. It leaves you feeling totally useless."

Stuart was sidelined by the injury more than a month ago and was clinging to the hope that the report from his doctor would give him the all clear to return to full-time training.

Instead, he was told the only chance he would have of running in Athens was to have a series of steroid and cortizone injections. "But I'm not having those, because there is no guarantee they would work and it can cause problems years down the line," he said.

"I've decided to look at the bigger picture and look beyond this year's Olympics.

"I'm taking the slower approach to give the injury time to fully recover. I've had the foot put in a cast for a couple of weeks to heal it.

"I'm gutted to miss out on the Olympics but, at my age, I still have a couple of Olympic Games left in me, the second one hopefully being the London Olympics, when I will be 34.

"I ran in the Commonwealth Games in front of my own crowd and it was an amazing atmosphere so I know what's it's like to run in a major event in your own country, and to finish my career at the Olympic Games in London would be a fantastic way to do it."

"It has always been my dream to compete at the Olympics. I just missed out at Sydney and I'm going to miss Athens.

"But that's the nature of athletics. One week you are on top of the world, and the next your life is shattered.

"But it is a test of your character when you suffer disappointments like this and you have got to bounce back.

"One thing missing an Olympic Games does, is make you even hungrier to compete at the next one."