It may be that Great Britain will need a radiographer to take the team picture as the preamble to the Beijing Olympics becomes pitted with injuries, mishaps and tears. Jessica Ennis is nursing her shattered dream with a set of crutches and Lance Armstrong's biography, and Paula Radcliffe is fighting an obsessive battle against a fractured femur. Both can draw inspiration from the way Denise Lewis limped to a gold medal in Sydney in 2000.

“It's horrible what's happened to Jess, tragic even, and you can't put into words how it feels,” Lewis said.

Like Ennis, Lewis knows the shock of having a doctor say her Olympic hopes were over. “I cried, too,” she said. “It's almost like you don't hear the voice even though you're listening. I still hope in the back of my mind that Jess might do what I did and get herself bandaged up and go out there, but she's probably made the sensible decision. I was at a different stage of my career. It was all or nothing, now or never, I had to put myself on the line, even if they scraped me off the track.”

Lewis was 28 when she overcame an Achilles injury, that had sidelined her for ten weeks, to win heptathlon gold. Ennis is 22 and, with Carolina Klüft moving to the long jump and Kelly Sotherton due to quit the combined events next year, she can expect to have two good shots at Olympic gold. For Radcliffe and Sotherton, the situation is more desperate because Beijing could be the last staging post.

“Paula's at a time in her career when it's imperative to take risks,” Lewis, who has texted the injured Ennis, said. “It takes a lot of strength to decide whether you listen to your doctor or find another way. For me, that meant getting up at 6am to have physio three times a day. I empathise with Paula. She has a great team around her and is a seasoned athlete, so she will know what to do. The difference is, she has two hours of sheer hell at the end.”

Radcliffe is now training on a special treadmill that restricts the weight she puts on her legs, but doctors have told her it will be impossible to make it to Beijing. Indomitable to the point of stubbornness, she is refusing to give up after seeing her Olympic hopes end in illness and injury on an Athens kerbside four years ago.

Even if she makes it to Beijing, it is hard to believe she will be at her best, which means Sotherton is fast becoming Britain's best bet for an athletics gold medal. She, too, has had problems, suffering acute kidney failure and admitting she feared her Olympic dream might also be over. But she has been given the all-clear and runs for Britain in the 4x400metres at the European Cup in Annecy, France, this weekend.

Speaking at the launch of the EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon, which takes place on October 26, Lewis said: “If Kelly wastes this opportunity, she will never forgive herself. You take your Olympic medal however it comes. She is healthy now and so can focus on going out and keeping it all together. That's all she has to do because there's nothing fantastic happening in the heptathlon this year.”

Can she overcome her almost fabled flaw, the javelin? “She has to,” Lewis said. “The thing with the heptathlon is you can't hate anything. That's the mistake. It's bad for Kelly because she has an event she absolutely fears. It shows in her body language and everything she does, it gets in her way. The key to a good heptathlon is not to have any obvious weaknesses. You don't need show-stopping performances in everything, but you can't have one event that makes you gasp and go, ‘Oh my God.'”

Lewis said that she is confident the unfortunate Ennis will return a stronger individual for her pains. “You can't go through a career without injury and it's how you manage yourself through the bad times,” she said. “You're always one jump away from disaster. It can only make her tougher in the long run, but no amount of wellwishers can ease the pain.”

The EDF Energy Birmingham Half Marathon takes place on Sunday, October 26. By joining the race against climate change, runners will be given access to free training programmes and advice for leading a more energy-efficient way of life. For more information and race entry details, log on to www.savetodaysavetomorrow.com.

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