Gourley, who made the final of the men's 1500 metres at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, has confirmed he will miss the Olympics following a calf injury.

He took to Twitter to say he would not be competing at the Olympic trials, which are set to take place from Friday (June 25) to Sunday (June 27) in Manchester at the British Athletics Championships.

There are six athletes in 2021 who have run the Olympic standard in the men's 1500m in Britain - with Gourley's Scottish compatriot Josh Kerr leading the field after clocking 3min 31.55sec in Oregon earlier this month to go seventh on his country's all-time list.

Gourley was marginally outside the 3:35.00 standard after running 3:35.79 in Toruń in Poland in February at the Copernicus Cup.

After emerging as one of the favourites at the 2021 European Indoor Championships in the 1500m, he struggled in the final, finishing 12th.

In his statement he revealed he was "one of a couple dozen athletes" from the British team that contracted COVID-19 at the event in Toruń in March.

He attributed this diagnosis to a disruption in training, which led to his injury when he rushed back to fitness.

"The British Olympic trials will take place this week and I won't be there," said Gourley.

"In March I was one of the couple dozen athletes from the British team that contracted COVID-19 while representing my country.

"This set me back a lot but by mid-April I was finally feeling strong again and performing better than in previous years in training.

"However, the rush to build back to fitness unfortunately landed me with a calf injury that ended up being a soleus tendon tear.

"Despite trying everything to rehabilitate in a short time frame, I haven't been able to get to the point where I can run powerfully without a lot of pain.

"We've now decided to give the injury all it needs: some time to heal.

"I've achieved things in this sport I never thought I would and I'll achieve even more.

"Unfortunately though, it won't be at this year's Olympic Games."

Gourley won bronze at the Athletics World Cup in 2018, following on from his bronze medal at the 2015 European Athletics Under-23 Championships in Tallinn.

He also won the gold medal at the 2019 British Athletics Championships, confirming his spot at the World Championships in a strong field.

Along with Kerr and Jake Wightman, Gourley was one of three Scots to make the final of the 1500m at the World Championships, finishing 11th.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics is scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8.