But again, injuries checked his progression, and after reaching the quarterfinals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Turner – then 28 – lost his £12,000 basic National Lottery grant.

UK Athletics, under the new leadership of Charles Van Commenee, made the judgement that he would not be a medal contender at the 2009 World Championships.

Turner begged to differ. And as London 2012 looms on his horizon he stands ready to compete in his third Olympics as European and Commonwealth champion, not to mention world bronze medallist.


After overseeing the efforts of the latest generation of Notts AC hurdlers – and bringing about a general improvement in technique that was evident even to this non-expert observer – Turner reflected upon the dramatic upturn his career has taken in the last couple of years.

"It's a bit surreal," he says, after signing off his long evening, literally, by autographing the shirts and tracksuit tops of around 20 excited young athletes.

"If someone had said to me five years ago this would be where I'd be, I wouldn't have believed them. It's a dream come true. I'm happy with the way things are progressing."

Generally happy, that is. Three days earlier he had finished last over 60m hurdles in the Aviva International in Glasgow, finishing in 7.74sec, 0.22 off his personal best. Having returned after Christmas having spent three months training hard in Florida under coach Brooks Johnson with Olympic bronze medallist David Oliver, Turner had found himself contending with a familiar problem – pain in his right foot.


The next day he is due back at hospital in St John's Wood for a second scan and an injection into the site of the injury, after which he will assess the practicality of carrying on with his indoor season.

"It's the tendon that goes underneath my right foot causing the trouble. It's inflamed, and I can feel it when I move my toes," he says, moving his toes as he does so. "I can feel it grinding. That's caused my whole foot to tighten up, which has caused more stress on the Achilles tendon. But the Achilles is a referred pain, not an actual problem.

"I'm not going to run again unless I'm pain-free. I can't give an honest account of myself when I am in pain. In Glasgow every step just hurt, and I can't force myself to do that again. Even though the time wasn't that bad, it's just disappointment because my foot is just holding me back. I'm thinking of maybe just ending my indoors and getting myself in one piece so I can start to train hard."

Is it, you wonder, worse for a hurdler to be injured, given the extraordinary range of movement the event requires of an athlete?

"I think so," Turner replies. "It's like an F1 car – absolute tip-top condition and then one tiny thing goes wrong and it affects the whole car. When my foot hurts here, because of that I'm not running right, which means my hips are in the wrong position.

"If you are a sprinter you can get away with it more, but not in the hurdles. Especially for someone of my height. I'm 6 foot. A lot of the other boys are 6ft 2, 6ft 4. Their height helps them. I need all the flexibility I've got. So if I've got a little injury it isn't helping me at all.

"I need to get my body in one piece. The work I was doing over the winter, I was seeing progression – and then it happened. So I just know that if I can rid of this problem and train hard, I can close that gap on them and challenge those boys legitimately for a medal in London."


By "those boys", Turner refers to three athletes who dominate the event: Liu Xiang, the Chinese idol who won the Olympic 2004 title and might have earned a second world title last year had he not been knocked off balance; Dayron Robles, the Cuban who succeeded Liu as Olympic champion and saw his world gold in Daegu disappear when he was disqualified for impeding his Chinese rival; and Oliver, the genial giant from Florida whose rewards from the sport have yet to match his talent.

"David had a few injury problems last season," Turner adds. "He wasn't himself. But he will be back. Mentally he is always 120 per cent – he's one of the strongest athletes mentally that I have known. He'll be all right.

"Robles and Liu Xiang – they are too good not to be at the Olympics, although they need to be as healthy as they can. Then again, even an unhealthy Robles can run 13.20, and that's straight away making any final.

"In fact at the Olympics most medals are won in 13.17 - 13.18. The final is not about who is the fastest man, it's about who wants the medals most, who makes the least mistakes and takes a medal away.

"Liu, he was going to win the world title in Daegu before he got knocked off balance. He's a phenomenon. You don't see him all year. Everyone uses races on the circuit to get themselves in shape. I don't know what he does. But you know that when he's at a championship he's going to run 12.90 flat, and he's always capable of that.

"I don't think there's anyone else in the world who can do what he does. If Liu is going to run against David, for instance, no matter what he says beforehand, he is going to be competitive. Even if he's in no shape he'll pull out a performance for that race. Technically there's nobody better.

"Mentally there's a lot going in this event. If the three fastest runners are fit and healthy when the starting gun goes in London, well...David's aiming for 12.75, put it that way. And I think he can do it. And if one of them does it..."

The possibilities are heady. And despite the fact that Turner's ambitions seem to be on hold while his foot problem is resolved, Bower, who has witnessed his athletic development at close quarters, is quietly optimistic about the prospects of his old charge at London 2012.

"Andy has always been a late developer," Bower says. "It took him a few years to get used to the high hurdles. But he is absolutely determined as a competitor.

"When Andy's Lottery funding was cut in 2009, it was typical of him that he took it on the chin and got stuck in again. If you asked me what his main strengths were, I would say determination, perseverance and a belief in himself.

"I've no doubt that if Andy can get fit this year – and he's carrying a bit of an injury at the moment – he will make the Olympic final. And once you make the Olympic final, particularly in the hurdles, anything can happen."

Turner's mother, Yvonne – a county 100m sprinter in her time as an athlete (and her genes have clearly won this particular athletic competition as her husband Malcolm was a county 1,500m runner) – also refers back to the way her son responded to his Lottery setback when she talks in terms of London 2012.

"They wrote him off," she says with a smile. "There were people telling him to hang his spikes up because he would never make anything of himself. It was absolutely ridiculous. We spoke to him and said: 'What are you going to do?' He said straight away 'I'm going to carry on. Of course I'm not going to stop.'

"He has got tenacity and integrity. He kept his head up."

Turner's own take on the Lottery incident is measured.

"Some people have said it gave me a kick up the backside when I had my funding withdrawn," he says. "That annoys me, because I've never needed a kick up the backside. I go to work every day, and I give everything I have got. I always train hard, I always give everything I've got.

"The main thing has been staying in one piece. Being on funding means I can have access to the doctors and physios that I needed. Being off funding was a nightmare. My girlfriend was trying to do my physio for me. When you are trying to accomplish big things, having to make do without that medical support is difficult."

So does he feel proud of the way he reacted?

"Yeah," he responds. "Some of the things I probably could have handled better. I was angry at the start. Me and Charles had a little fall out. But we've made up and it's cool now. But it was a tough time. That's why I had to go on the circuit and race everyone to try and raise the money I needed for my kids. Which meant I did my hamstring the year before the 2009 Worlds. I probably did too much racing."


But when it came to the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu, Turner was ready. And Oliver, who had dominated the event earlier in the season, was unable to maintain his form, finishing fifth in the final.

"Sometimes it's about timing," says Bower. "It's a bit like sharpening a pencil. It starts off blunt and gradually through a season it's getting sharper and sharper until you have a really good point. But as with a pencil, you can keep that point for a very short time, and if you are really flying in May, when you have the World Championships or Olympics in August there's a good chance you might go blunt again.

"And I think that's what happened last year with David Oliver. You can be flying and winning everything in sight, but if you're not fast at the right time you don't win any medals.

"Oliver, Liu Xiang and Robles are vying for one, two and three in London. But I think Andy will be knocking on the door. I think winning a medal at last year's worlds has taken him to the next level."

Turner himself is almost dismissive of his achievement in Korea last summer.

"I don't know how I feel about it still," he says. "I just wish I had have run a race that I think deserved a medal. When I crossed the line to win the Europeans in Barcelona, the feeling of knowing I'd won was amazing. That's what it's all about – moments like that."

But does he agree with his old coach that winning a global medal means he has moved up a level?

"It's one thing taking your body there, but it's another thing taking your mind to that level," he responds. "But I think I am there now, and I think I got there before the worlds. I got that from my European and Commonwealth wins. Because it's not the fact that I won the gold, it's the fact that I went into a final, and technically my race was on point – I didn't make any mistakes in either final. And that's hard. A lot of people falter in finals. That gave me a lot of confidence."

Returning to Florida for more training in March, Turner feels, will add more confidence. But the unresolved pain in his right foot prevents him from sketching out his ambitions in fine detail.

"You think about London 2012, you know it's there, but it's a long way away yet," he says. "Everyone says it's going to come around fast, and it is, but there's so much that can happen between now and then, you don't know what is going to happen. I just need to be physically OK, and then I am just trying to keep myself to myself and work hard."


A few minutes earlier, amid a flickering of flash photography, Turner has sat on a landing mat with a horde of young athletes around him and fished a fistful of medals out of a blue bag for their perusal. As the athletes of the future pass the bronze and gold around reverently, Turner encourages them to put the ribbons over their heads and around their necks.

"Get used to it – and then go and get one of your own," he says with a grin. How sweet would it be if he could return to his old haunts later this year with another medal in his collection.

Andy Turner is an ambassador for Alfa Romeo, official car supplier to UK Athletics