James Austin 'heartbroken' as injury rules him out of Commonwealth Games
James Austin revealed his Commonwealth Games heartbreak after he was ruled out with a serious knee injury.
The Lichfield judoka tore his anterior cruciate ligament in the final session of a training camp in Slovenia three weeks ago.
A comeback attempt failed when he aggravated the injury on Tuesday and he will have an operation today.
The 2012 Olympian was due to compete for Team Scotland in the -100kgs on July 26
He said: "I'm gutted. I need to come to terms with it but it's obviously difficult.
"It was the last practice on the last day and I tried to get off a throw in randori and tore my ACL, partially tore my lateral ligament and damaged the posterior ligament, I also chipped about 1cm off the bone in my knee.
"In the last couple of weeks I have been hitting the rehab. Being honest the doctors said there was no way I would come back because it was so serious but they and the performance director (David Somerville) agreed to support my decision to give it a go.
"The rehab included two weeks of Randori but when we stepped it up on Tuesday I aggravated it.
"Judo Scotland have been so supportive and they offered me an operation on Wednesday but I said no because rehab was going so well and I wanted to make the Games."
The 31-year-old, who qualified for Scotland through residency, is likely to be sidelined for a year but is yet to decide on his long-term future.
"I would hate to leave on this. I've had a pretty good career but it's early days, we'll see where we are in six months," he said.
