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Inspired Kallur's ready for Amsterdam comeback

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Susanna Kallur is preparing to make an emotional return to the European Athletics Championships next month - 10 years after she won a gold medal at the event.

The Swedish 100m hurdler has revealed that Amsterdam is in her plans after her superb return in Stockholm last week in her first competition for six years.

'It feels great,' said Kallur. 'It is great that I managed to come back to a decent level so far anyway…it feels super inspiring.'

Now 35, Kallur has not competed at a championship since 2008 after her glorious career was torn apart by injury.

She now runs with a metal insert in her right leg and while retirement seemed inevitable, she just never gave up.

Not only did she not lose her desire, neither did her speed disappear.

Last Thursday at the IAAF Diamond League, she finished fifth in 13.00, a time which was easily inside the 13.30 Amsterdam qualifying mark and puts her 14th on the European Athletics rankings.

'I have been working towards this and the Championships this summer has been the big goal,' said Kallur at a press conference in Stockholm on Tuesday.

'I aimed to do my own race and not get stressed if there was someone nearby who had a good start and pulled away. It went very good for the first five or six hurdles. The trickiest bit was from the start to the first hurdle. That's because it was my first race. It was the best I could come up with.'

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Kallur lifted the European 100m hurdles crown in front of her own fans in Gothenburg in 2006 when she won in 12.59, having already been the European Indoor 60m hurdles champion from 2005, a title she would successfully defend in 2007.

In February 2008 she broke the indoor world record with 7.68 in Karlsruhe - a time which still stands today.

It was a performance that made her one of the red-hot favourites for the Olympic title in Beijing that summer. But she fell at the first hurdle in the semi-finals in China and was left in despair, sitting on the track, her left hand on her head, with a look of disbelief.

A stress fracture injury struck in 2009 and though she ran in 2010, she has not competed at a championship since Beijing.

But she is back and will now not have to wait long until she is actually on the championship stage again. The 100m hurdles is the second track event on the opening morning in Amsterdam on July 6, 11.40am local time, a moment Susanna Kallur could only have dreamed of.




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