Jason Smyth missed the Commonwealth Games in Delhi

Jason Smyth's hopes of resuming full training appear to have been dashed after scans revealed "no significant improvement" in his back injury.

The injury ruled Smyth out of the Commonwealth Games after he reached this year's European 100m semi-finals.

Smyth has been able to do some training and may travel to Portugal for a warm-weather stint next week.

However, Smyth's hopes of defending his Paralympic World titles in January could now be in doubt.

Smyth's original intention was to travel to his regular winter base of Florida in early November but his injury and delays in obtaining a visa put those plans on hold.

The Eglinton sprinter had a scan on his injury last week and his coach Stephen Maguire told BBC Sport on Tuesday that the results had indicated "no significant improvement".

"We now will have to more discussions with the medical people over the next couple of days and see where we go from there," added Maguire.

"He has been able to train over the last number of weeks and we had a hill session today up at Belfast Zoo and I was quite happy how it went and how his recovery was.

"But the training is not specific enough for what a top-class sprinter needs so we have to give the overall situation some thought over the coming days and plot the course for the rest of the winter."

In addition to the training that he has been able to undertake, Smyth has been getting treatment at the Sports Institute of Northern Ireland over the past seven weeks.

However, the back problem is bone-related which has slowed down his recovery.

The double Paralympic champion ran a new NI record of 10.32 in mid-June and a wind-assisted 10.27 but his build-up to the Europeans was then affected by injury.

The Eglinton man was unable to race for a six-week period before the European Championships.

The injury had to be carefully managed in order to make the start line at the Europeans, in which he was a 100m semi-finalist.

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