PAUL Blake hopes a career-threatening foot injury will not keep him from taking to the track at the Paralympic Games in September.

After winning the 800-metre Grand Prix event in Sauleda, Spain last month, he came back with plantar fasciitis, an injury that affects the heel of the foot.

Although some cases can spell the end of athlete’s career, Blake is confident he will back to full fitness in two weeks, but it will mean he is set to miss the IPC European Championships this week in Grosseto, Italy.

Talking to Echosport about the injury, Blake said: “I’ve laid back a bit in training, but we managed to catch it early.

“It’s feeling a lot better than it has done. I’m able to walk on it and warm up on it, which is great.

“It’s annoying, but there is nothing I can do about it. All I can do is do my stretches and ice and rest it.”

Although it is a setback for Blake, a bigger issue has been the lack of races heading into one of the biggest competitions of his life, now just three months away.

“It’s not been ideal prep this season,” he explained. “It’s been difficult to find races.

“I’ve been trying to find races, because I’ve only done two races this year.

“I am trying to do more able-bodied races because there’s more of them, and I’m hoping to do a race in Bristol at the end of July.

“This injury has been a blessing in disguise. It’s allowed me to rest and get back into training slowly. It will make me want to go even harder now that I have had this rest. Seeing everyone else doing well makes me want to get back quicker but you can’t rush these things.

“It will be another two weeks before I can start running.”

Blake has already secured the time needed to qualify for the Games in Rio de Janeiro and will hope to announce his selection on Wednesday, June 22.

At the start of the year, Blake told the BBC that he was struggling for sponsorship.

Now six months on, he is found a couple of private sponsors that has enabled him to focus entirely on the goals at hand.

He remarked: “It’s going really well, but it took a couple of months for that to happen.

“I am getting help with travel and that is great, so now I can just get my head down and prepare for September.”