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| Swedish hurdler Susanna Kallur is hopeful that she will be able to bid to regain her European title in Helsinki this summer. |
Sweden's 2006 European Athletics Championships 100m hurdles gold medallist Susanna Kallur is hoping that more than three years of injuries and frustration are finally behind her and that she will be able to bid to regain her continental crown this summer in Helsinki.
The 2012 European Athletics Championships will be held in the Finnish capital from 27 June – 1 July.
Kallur, who is also the world indoor 60m hurdles record holder and won the 2005 and 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships 60m hurdles titles, has faced a battle to get back to her best since 2009 when she had surgery on a shin stress fracture and missed the entire year.
She initially made a promising comeback in 2010 that included running an impressive 12.78, the fourth fastest time by a European athlete that year, in New York but a subsequent infection in the wound and more surgery meant she was unable to defend her European title in Barcelona two years ago.
She didn't race last year either but is now back in full training in her home town of Falun.
'In 2010, doctors opened up the scar tissue from the initial surgery several times. Last autumn, they finally took out the screws that remained in the shin. A blood test last summer showed that I also have a nickel allergy, and it may have added to the pain I was suffering from,' commented Kallur in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet earlier this week.
'It was nice to get rid of the screws, it feels great to not be a 'robot-runner' more.
'About a month ago, I had my first training session with spikes in a year. After the first and second sprints, it was 'Yes, it's coming back.'
'Everything looks good. I'm not still at my best, not quite yet but my actual technique over the hurdles is really good.'
Kallur has a personal best of 12.49, which she ran in Berlin five years ago, and no European hurdler has run faster since then.
'I can get down to the times I did in the past again. Yes, that's what I'm up for in the future. My goal now is to come back and do an entire season, have stability and continuity. I want to qualify for the European Championships and the Olympics,' added Kallur.
Now 31, Kallur will have her first race since June 2010, when she ran in the European Team Championshisp First League meeting in Budapest, in about six weeks time.
'The feeling when you step into an arena, you are fit and ready to go; that's what I want. It is pure magic, an addiction that I got to taste for a few years, maybe it's because of that I haven't quit. In fact, I would continue even if I had to train in a barn,' reflected the determined Kallur.