Chris Tomlinson is banking on two pints of milk and a hyperbaric chamber to get him fit in time for the Olympic Games.

The British long jumper, who would have been a long shot for a medal in Beijing, is still at home in Hampstead where he is receiving intensive treatment on his torn right calf muscle. "UK Athletics have put me on a diet of multi-vitamins and said I should drink two pints of milk a day," he said. "I'm not too fond of the stuff but I'll do anything to make it to Beijing."

Tomlinson suffered the injury during the Aviva London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace a fortnight ago and, after initially thinking it was only cramp, received the devastating scan results that revealed a grade two tear.

"I’m also undergoing daily treatment in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber at the London Diving Chamber at St John’s Wood, where I’m breathing in pure oxygen for sessions of an hour and 40 minutes at a time," he said. "Usually, it should take four weeks to heal but I haven't got that long."

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The good news for Tomlinson is that the injury is not to his take-off leg as the doctors fear that would not have taken the strain of competition. Now Tomlinson is facing a race against time to make it to the runway for the long jump qualifying round. The bad news for him is that that takes place on only the second day of the athletics competition a week tomorrow. Already, Tomlinson has had to alter his plans to fly out to the training camp in Macau and acclimatise.

Dave Collins, the UKA performance director, said Tomlinson was doing everything he could to make a dramatic late entrance. Apart from winning a silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia in March, the British record holder has suffered a mediocre year, although a marginal no-jump of 8.40m at the Olympic trials showed his potential.

Another British athlete hoping to put injury woes behind her is Kelly Sotherton. Third at last year's World Championships in Japan, she has received a ringing endorsement as she tries to put back, foot and leg injuries behind her, not to mention the acute kidney failure she suffered earlier in the year. Carolina Kluft, the reigning Olympic champion who has chosen to concentrate on the long jump in Beijing, said she felt Sotherton would take her title. Jackie Joyner-Kersee, a two-time Olympic champion, also said that "it seems like it's all coming together for her."

Sotherton, whose Achilles heel remains a javelin throw that is likely to be some 20 metres shy of the longest efforts, was not enamoured by the praise. "It’s a bit more pressure than in the past and it doesn’t really help that the current Olympic champion is putting pressure on me to take her title," she said.

Paula Radcliffe's personal crusade to make Beijing also goes on. The world record holder at the marathon is in full training after suffering a fractured femur in May, but any sort of a medal here would constitute a huge achievement. However, Deena Kastor, the American runner, is backing her to make it to the line in Tiananmen Square a week on Sunday. She said: "You keep an eye on all competition and you also know that the Chinese women are going to put on a great show because of the pride they're going to have representing the home country, but she's the biggest competitor out there as far as I'm concerned."