DREAMS of Olympic glory were dashed for three top sportsmen when they missed out on selection for the team for Athens.

Double Olympian canoeist Paul Ratcliffe, middle distance athlete Peter Riley and world class taekwan-do star Amarpal Singh will now have to settle for watching Friday's opening ceremony on TV.

For Tyldesley's golden hope Paul, 30, who lifted the silver medal in the K1 slalom final in Sydney, his exclusion was a shock when he failed to qualify, but for Leigh international cross country runner Peter, 25, a groin injury last month wiped out his chances of making the team for the 10,000m.

Indian-born Amarpal, 25, of Tyldesley, is still awaiting British citizenship and the red-tape delay ultimately kept him out of a squad which includes his coach Paul Green.

While Paul contemplates his future, Peter and Armarpal are determined to make the 2008 games in Beijing.

In 1996 in his first Olympics, a late mistake dropped Paul down from fourth to 14th place in the K1 slalom final and he was crestfallen.

A relative newcomer to the big stage at that time and just out of university it was evident he had set himself high standards and his ambitions showed no bounds.

He went to Sydney in 2000 as the world number one intending only to return with the gold medal, but it was not to be.

On the day the German Thomas Schmidt was the man inspired and Paul, whose parents Bob and Cath live in Squires Lane, Tyldesley, had to settle for silver after capsizing.

Paul, who became only the second Briton to win an Olympic canoeing medal, was on target for selection after finishing fourth at the world championships in 2003.

But he was devastated by his poor shows in the next two qualifiers which saw him finish 37th and 18th and rule him out of Athens.

A spokesman for Britain's World Class Canoe Performance said Paul was on a month-long tour of Europe.

He added: 'We don't know what his plans are, but he's probably gone away to think about what he's going to do."