Dan Keatings was forced to watch from the sidelines as his Great Britain team-mates won Olympic bronze at London last year but this weekend he is out to claim centre stage at the British Championships at Liverpool's Echo Arena.

The Scot will be battling against those who were selected ahead of him for London 2012, including his compatriot Dan Purvis and the English duo Max Whitlock and Sam Oldham.

Kristian Thomas, who suffered an injury at a competition in France earlier this month, could also make the line-up while first-year seniors Frank Baines and Courtney Tulloch are also a threat.

Keatings has a point to prove, though. After injuries to both ankles caused him to miss the European Championships, he thought he had done enough to convince the selectors of his fitness at last year's British Championship, the Olympic trials, where he finished third.

The selectors thought otherwise and only named him as a reserve. "When I found out I hadn't made the Olympic team it was really hard," Keatings told British Gymnastics television this week. "I really wanted to be there, as it's not often there's an Olympics in your home country. I was upset but I pulled myself together for the team and went there and supported them because, at the end of the day, they are my friends. I train day-in, day-out with them and they deserved to be there, so it was great to see them do well.

"My fans, friends and family have been really supportive over the last year; it's been important to keep me on my feet and to keep me pushing. I could have given up but they didn't give me the chance to do that. I've had so many injuries and so many setbacks and I've managed to come back from each one of them and get some decent results.

"You just have to think that it's not the end of the world [when you are injured]. It's a long and hard road back but, if you set yourselves goals, you can fight through them and get back to how strong you were."