Athlete Turner's Greek tragedy

The 23-year-old looked composed and confident when he lined up in sunglasses in lane five for heat five of the First Round of the 110m hurdles in the Olympic Stadium on Tuesday morning.

But despite a good start in the biggest race of his career, Turner lost his way and finished in eighth and last place to crash out of the Games at his first attempt.

Turner, whose family home is on Nottingham Road, went to the Olympics as the British number one and the only Briton to have clocked the necessary qualifying time for his event.

It was the pinnacle of an athletics career that has spiralled since his days as a schoolboy prodigy.

And his chance of making the Olympic final was no pipedream, given that he was ranked sixth in Europe and 30th in the world.

But a tendonitis injury, followed by a torn muscle in his left thigh, wrecked his preparation, keeping him out of full training for almost two months.

And with the injuries went his hopes as Tuesday's run prevented him from even making the Second Round (last 32) of the hurdles competition.

Commenting on his Olympic debut, which was televised live on the BBC, Turner said: "The first part of the race was OK but then it just went to pieces. I don't really know what happened. I am a bit annoyed."

The Hucknall runner, who is the current Dispatch Sports Personality Of The Year, was with the rest of the field at the first few hurdles. But he ended up running a disappointing time of 13.75 seconds after hitting barriers eight and nine heavily.

The time was faster than Britain's other hurdler, former Nottinghamshire rival Rob Newton, who clocked 13.85 to finish seventh in heat four.

But in an event where tenths of a second count for so much, it was some way outside the fastest qualifying time of the heats, 13.18, and also some way outside Turner's personal best of 13.47, which he set in Hungary in May and which would have been good enough to get him through to Wednesday's Second Round.

In the build-up to the Olympics, Turner told the Dispatch he was determined not to go to Athens "to just make up the numbers" and that he would be gutted to have only one race.

But his worst fears came true – thanks to the injuries, which first surfaced after his second appearance in a Great Britain (GB) vest when finishing third in the SPAR European Cup in Poland in June.

Notts AC runner Turner said: "I picked up an injury four days after the European Cup. At first, I thought it was a problem with my Achilles tendon but then it was diagnosed as tendonitis in the foot.

"After recovering from this, I then tore the inside of my quad muscle (thigh) in my first session in spikes at the Team GB training camp in Cyprus. Since then, I have had only two or three quality training-sessions, although they went fine."

During the BBC's coverage of the 110m hurdles heats, hurdling legend and former world champion Colin Jackson revealed he had spoken to Turner on the phone to give him some advice about putting the injuries to the back of his mind.

Jackson, who still holds the world record for the event, said: "I told him to go out there and try and just clear those barriers well. I think I got the message through to him."

Welshman Jackson was previously impressed with Turner when he picked up his first GB vest in Florence, Italy in the European Super League Cup final of 2003 when he finished fifth.

But after Tuesday's race, Jackson commented: "That's what happens when you haven't had a lot of training. He held it together in the beginning but it wasn't to be."

In the Athens crowd watching were Turner's parents, Malcolm and Yvonne, who have backed their son both emotionally and financially over the years.

Despite the result, Turner will still go down in the sporting archives of Hucknall as the first sportsman from the town to reach the summer Games.

He has long been earmarked as an athletics star and started winning races at the age of six at Hucknall's Edgewood Primary School.

He developed into a prolific winner, following in the hurdling footsteps of older brother Garry, and winning an historic gold medal at the English Schools Championships of 1997.

Among his successes were a hat-trick of gold medals at the Notts AAA Championship one year.

Now his dream is over, he is sure to turn his attentions to getting fitter and running faster. What price to see him competing for Britain in the Beijing Olympics in 2008?