Nick Griggs fighting way back to fitness and form after being sidelined due to injury

Three scans followed in January and Nick Griggs was diagnosed with osteomyelitis, a bone infection that was likely related to the wound from the fall. “They still don’t know the root cause,” he admits. 

BACK TO FITNESS: Nick Griggs is getting back to form following osteomyelitis. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

Between the highs of two European U23 medals, seven months apart, Nick Griggs sank to some difficult depths. Up until recently, the career of the rising star from Tyrone had been one of steady improvement and outlying performances, but all that changed when he was pushed to the ground at the start of the U23 race at the European Cross Country in Antalya, Turkiye last December.

Griggs got back to his feet swiftly, then sliced his way through the field to win silver. But as he cooled down after the race he felt a strange, achy pain in his right knee. He thought it was nothing major and trained on in the weeks after, but it kept swelling to the point where he was soon struggling to bend his knee.