Steve Fonyo appeared briefly in court Tuesday on charges of assaulting his wife Lisa Greenwood, and breach of conditional release on a previous conviction of fraud and uttering threats.

The matter was put over to Wednesday, when a Surrey provincial court judge is expected to set a date for trial.

"I'm surprised it got this far," Fonyo said. "I was never violent."

A conviction could put the 46-year-old back in jail, because he would have breached an 18-month conditional sentence from January.

Greenwood said police arrested Fonyo at the couple's Surrey home last month after she called 911, and said he'd "whacked" her in the nose.

But she later told 24 hours Fonyo was swinging his arms around as they argued, and accidentally clipped her in the face. She said she called 911 because of past abusive relationships.

Fonyo - who lost a leg to cancer at 12 - ran over 7,900 km in 1984-85 to raise $13 million for cancer research. Since then he's reportedly grappled with fame and his father's death from cancer.