Swift allays injury concerns

Team Sky's Ben Swift has revealed his shoulder injury is not as bad as first feared following a consultation with a surgeon on Friday.

The 24-year-old from Rotherham has been forced to withdraw from the year's first Grand Tour, the Giro d'Italia, which begins on Saturday, following a training crash.

However, the Team Sky rider Swift received positive news on Friday.

He wrote on his Twitter feed: "(The) good news is that nothing is broken, just a dislocation which went back in. Have anther MRI scan next week once swelling has gone down."

The development is a boost for Swift, but missing the three-week Tour of Italy could hamper his chances of taking a place in the Olympic road race team.

Swift has turned his focus from the track, where he was in contention for the four-man, four-kilometre team pursuit, to the road and is hoping to be one of four support riders when Mark Cavendish bids for Olympic gold on July 28.

The British Academy graduate is a proven winner in his own right with victories in the Tour Down Under, Tour of California and Tour de Romandie in 2011, and had hoped to use the Giro to demonstrate his ability to act as a secondary option to Cavendish come the Olympic road race in Surrey.

Swift, who now lives on the Isle of Man, faces a difficult challenge to make the road squad, with three of the five places already determined.

Cavendish will take one place and two will go to the riders participating in the Olympic time-trial; likely to be Bradley Wiggins plus one of Chris Froome, Alex Dowsett or the newly eligible David Millar.