``I don't want to finish this way. I'm really going to try to come back,'' an emotional Engquist told a news conference. ``I'm going to come back, back to the Olympics in 2000.''

``It would be sad to think only about survival and be happy with sitting down drinking coffee,'' Engquist said. ``I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of having a boring time.''

She said she had discovered a lump in her breast a month ago while training in Spain and had undergone surgery last week. She now faced chemotherapy.

The 35-year-old Russian-born athlete, who had to cut her season short last year after failing to recover from a leg injury, said she hoped to return to the track next year and show other people that it was possible to make a comeback, whatever the odds.

``I can't only have the goal to live. That would besad,'' Engquist said. ``My goal is to return in the best running shape and I think it is good for me to have this goal, it will help me.''

After the operation, Engquist was told she could start light training in a few months but she started only days later. However, on Tuesday, she was told the cancer had spread and she would need further treatment.

``My first reaction was that I did not want to live anymore because how can Johan (her husband) love a woman who has not only lost her breast but also risks losing her hair during the (chemotherapy) treatment,'' news agency TT quoted her as saying.

``But then I thought that the thing with the breast can be fixed and the hair will grow out again.''

``I'll probably go to the Sydney Olympics with the biggest breasts that exist,'' she said laughing. ``It may even be better with larger breasts in hurdles because the point of gravity will be further forward.''

Engquist, who has lived in Sweden since 1993, took World Championship gold medals in 1991 inTokyo -- under her maiden name of Narozhilenko -- and in 1997 in Athens plus the Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996.

Engquist was born in Russia. She married her agent, Swede Johan Engquist, and became a Swedish citizen in 1996.