Rob takes the BEN's athletic Frank Wood through a painful workout

HE's a superman in every sense of the word. Four years after Rob Hodgkiss had a heart transplant, BEN reporter Frank Wood joined him for a breathless interview -- during a training session on the Leverhulme track. YOUNG Bolton dad Rob Hodgkiss has the will of an Everest climber, the determination of an Olympic champion -- and the heart of someone else.

Four years after receiving a new heart in a desperate race to save his life, the inspirational 34-year-old, of New Court Drive, Egerton, is not only back winning races himself -- he's also coaching Bolton's up and coming young athletes to do the same.

His athletics performances as a teenager would have made any family proud. But it is what he has done in athletics and swimming since his transplant operation that has put him in the premier league and made him the toast of Bolton Harriers.

As a confident youth, Rob was showing the potential to be a track star, winning the county 400 metres title at the age of 16 and going on to represent Greater Manchester in the English Schools Championships.

Everything in life for the former Turton High pupil was falling into place as he qualified as a dentist at Newcastle University. He was president of the university athletics club and also swam well and played soccer.

He was looking forward to setting up a dental practice when, without warning, he started to suffer what was thought to be a chest infection. He went on holiday to Majorca and got out of breath just pushing the baby in her pram.

When he failed to respond to antibiotics, Rob was taken into hospital back in Newcastle where it was found he had viral cardiomyopathy which had destroyed his heart muscles. And he was hit with the bombshell news that he would almost certainly be dead within two weeks without a transplant.

But as that awful deadline drew close, a matching heart was found and Rob has never looked back, amazing everyone who knows him with his burning desire to do well again at sport.

He has won gold medals for running and swimming at transplant games all over the world -- his latest at the European Heart and Lung Transplant Games in Norway last month where he scooped four golds and three silvers. And on Thursday he is off to Newcastle with Bolton's other celebrated transplant athlete, Kelly Walmsley, to compete in the British Transplant Games in Newcastle.

Rob's great inspiration had always been Bolton Harriers' coach Shaun O'Donnell who had encouraged him as a teenager. Rob now works alongside Shaun, coaching 13 to 18-year-olds at the Leverhulme Park track and specialising in the hurdles.

The Esporta health club is so impressed by Rob and Kelly's determination, it provides both with superb training facilities. And Esporta's physiotherapist, Tracey Bradley, who had been treating Rob for a hamstring pull, was so amazed at his will to win she part-sponsored his trip to Norway.

Rob is soon to start training to be a physiotherapist -- he hopes one day to be a physio for other transplant patients -- but if he can find time for athletics, he has set his sights on next year's World Transplant Games in Japan.

He has been married to his wife Julie since 1993 and, when his heart problem was spotted, they already had baby girl Bethany, now four. They now have a son, Adam, aged two and conceived after Rob's transplant.

"There's the proof, if you need it, that everything's working again," laughed Rob.

The training however is not always easy for him. He said: "There are still days when I feel lousy, so I don't train then. And I have a weight problem because of the anti-rejection drugs I have to take. I used to be 11 stone and now I'm 13."

Anyone watching him streak down the 100 metres in 13 seconds however, would never believe it.

"But to me that's slow," said Rob. "I used to do 11 seconds, and the 400 metres I used to do in 50 seconds now take me 70."

His weight, however, is not always a disadvantage. He doesn't compete on the track for the Harriers any more -- but he still throws the discus in inter-club events.

And his training has to follow a whole new format. "I have to warm up for ages. The nerves to my heart ave been cut, so my brain doesn't get the message that my heart has to speed up. It's only when I am getting into oxygen debt that my heart begins to pump harder, so I finish most sessions very out of breath."