It is just seven days until the start of the European Athletics Indoor Championships and as part of our extensive coverage we are looking back on some of the great moments from its glorious history.
It looked for a few years as if the European Athletics Indoor Championships were jinxed for Ashia Hansen. Until 1998, that is.
At the 1994 European Indoors in Paris, this US-born triple jumper who was adopted and then grew up in London failed to progress from the qualifying competition, managing only 13.30m.
Two years later, in Stockholm, she reached the final but then failed to register a valid effort.
By the time she reached Valencia in 1998, Hansen had proved her ability in the international field by taking silver at the 1997 IAAF World Indoor Championships with a national record of 14.70m.
So would the European Indoors prove third-time lucky for her?
The 26-year-old Briton swiftly set about confirming that hope as she established a third-round lead of 14.69m. But in the next round Sarka Kasparkova of the Czech Republic, who had won the world outdoor title in Athens the previous year, overtook her with a national indoor record of 14.76m.
The response was immediate as Hansen, first urging the crowd to clap her down the runway, produced an effort so prodigious that her hop and step phase saw her land perilously close to the edge of the pit before taking off for her final phase.
She had set a new world indoor record of 15.16m, adding 13cm to the previous mark held by Russia’s Yolanda Chen.
When the scoreboard flashed what proved the winning distance, the sizeable British contingent spread among the Valencian crowd waved their Union flags in celebration. Hansen buried her head in disbelief.
“I was laughing and crying,” she said later, clutching her gold medal. “I can still hardly believe it. The step phase just seemed to go on and on forever. I got out of the pit and saw I'd gone over 15m but I didn't think it would be a world record.
“I knew Kasparkova had jumped 15.20m outdoors last year and I expected a bigger jump from her. When I lost the lead to her I just got wound up. I thought, 'Hey, I should be ahead'. If she had produced something more in the last two rounds I think I would have been ready to respond again.”
Kasparkova could not improve further and Hansen, having made a token effort in the fifth round, felt able to pass in the final round with the gold secure.
It was the first victory by a British athlete in a senior international championship for two long years, since Du’Aine Ladejo’s 400m win at the 1996 European Indoors.
Hansen also became the first British woman to set a world record in a jumping event since Mary Rand, the 1964 Olympic long jump champion.
It was a significant arrival for an athlete who would win two Commonwealth, one European and two world indoor golds within five years.
Triple jump: Ashia Hansen (GBR) 15.16m (WR, CR); Sarka Kasparkova (CZE) 14.76m (NR); Yelena Lebedenko (RUS) 14.32.