By John Haughey

Turnbull is aiming for next year's Europeans and Commonwealths

Gareth Turnbull's run of shocking luck has continued after a broken foot was followed by him contracting deep vein thrombosis on a transatlantic flight.

The athlete's career has been plagued by injury and illness and he also had a long battle before clearing his name after a positive drugs test in 2005.

Turnbull broke his foot while training a month ago and his leg "blew up like a balloon" as he flew home from his US.

"It's just crazy luck," the 1500 metre runner told BBC Sport on Tuesday.

"I got off the plane at Heathrow and had to get medical treatment straight away - it was that obvious.

"I was later told that if I had got my next scheduled flight to Belfast, I would have been in trouble.

"There was a clot at the bottom of my leg and I had to spend three days at Heathrow because there was no way any airline was going to fly me to Belfast given my condition at that stage.

"Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) genuinely proves fatal in seven per cent of cases so it was not something that I could or can take any risks with."

Turnbull was told by a specialist in Dublin that it's extremely rare for "people as fit and healthy as me" to be hit by the condition.

"I don't fit the profile at all for DVT and the doctor told me that he had only ever seen one other case similar to mine.

"What can I say? After all the bad luck that I've had over the past number of years, all I can do at this stage is just laugh at it. It's gone beyond a joke."

Turnbull's frustrations have been heightened by the fact that his training in the US had been going "really, really well" before he suffered the cruel setbacks.

"The work I was doing in my (training) sessions told me that the ability was still there and I was fitter and doing better work than I had ever done before.

"But then I broke my third metatarsal a month ago tomorrow when I ran over a stone while training with the Canadian athlete Kevin Sullivan," added Turnbull on Tuesday.

DVT is just something that you cannot take risks with it and there will be no question of rushing back to action Gareth Turnbull

"But the broken foot was the easy bit and a lot worse was to follow."

Turnbull has been told that he is unlikely to be able to resume training for three months and he will need to be extremely careful over the coming weeks in the hope that rest and medication dissolve the clot.

The 30-year-old is resigned to missing out on yet another summer of track action but he is already thinking ahead to next year and competing in the Commonwealth Games and European Championships.

"This summer is very, very unlikely. DVT is just something that you cannot take risks with it and there will be no question of rushing back to action.

"But this year is a World Championship year and if there is a consolation, it's that I have already competed in a World Championship (2003).

"Next year's Europeans and Commonwealths are achievable targets for me where I can make an impact if I get it right on the day.

"But it will be another year of trying to stretch out my financial resources because I haven't been getting any funding for a number of years so that doesn't make the task any easier."

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