Welshman Dai Greene has been forced out of the European Athletics Championships by injury.

An official statement from the championships in Berlin says: “Great Britain and Northern Ireland team captain Dai Greene has sadly been forced to withdraw from today’s qualifying round of the men’s 400m hurdles.

“His hamstring tightened during warm up causing him difficulty hurdling.”

Former World and Commonwealth champion Greene has been hit hard by injuries during his career and has said: “I have thought at times why is it me? Why always me?”

Greene, 32, went through a huge amount hard work to get back to international competition and the Europeans are his biggest competition in five years.

For the past few years struggled for fitness. In 2014 he raced twice, in 2015 six times, in 2016 twice and in 2017 once when he failed to even finish the race.

A succession of groin problems mean he had surgery for three successive years.

Greene’s victory at the British Championships came as a surprise to those who assumed they may never see the Welshman at that level again.

He said after qualifying for the Europeans: “That was my target for this season.

“If I can make the final there that would be a successful season for me, given where I was. That’s quite a lofty ambition at the moment.

“At the back of my mind I have the next Olympics as a cut-off point. I definitely want to go that long and then we’ll see.”

Now Welsh ace Greene has been rocked again and the frustration will hurt.