Sheene still fighting after regime change.

Motorcycle grand prix legend Barry Sheene refuses to be beaten by the throat and stomach cancer with which he was diagnosed earlier in the year, despite having had to admit defeat with his original course of treatment.

The ex-pat Briton, now living on Australia's Gold Coast, revealed that he had had to quit the Chinese diet programme of vegetables and juices that he began to use to combat the cancer when it was first diagnosed in July, and has also since discarded an alternative therapy that took him to New Mexico in the United States. Despite the setbacks, however, he is still refusing traditional chemotherapy, and has now moved on to a special schedule of microwave therapy.

"The doctors disapprove of it, so it must be alright," a typically chirpy Sheene told Britain's Daily Telegraph, "It rattles the cancer around, does it a lot of harm and basically kills it. I'll know in four weeks whether or not it has been successful."

Whatever he has been using to combat the disease that was revealed to the public not long after he had been in his native Britain for the Donington Park MotoGP event, Sheene admits to having felt better on his still regular trips to the gym.

"The first time I went, I did 75 press-up," he revealed, "Two days ago, I did 100 - so I can't be that bad. Half the battle is being alive - and I'm still very much alive!"