European indoor long jump champion Darya Klishina is still troubled by an ankle injury picked up at last year's world championships, she said Monday after winning her third-straight Russian Winter title.
Klishina, 21, is one of the medal favorites for the London Olympics after posting the third-longest jump in the world this year - 6.86 meters - at the weekend meet in Moscow.
“In my head there’s still a psychological rehabilitation going on. It's all getting better and better with every competition," said Klishina, who finished a disappointing seventh at the world championships in Daegu, South Korea, after injuring her ankle in the warm-up.
Klishina said she had overcome the worst of her anxiety on the runway, however, after the Aviva International Match in Glasgow last month.
"Now I already feel OK, but when I took the first competition [in Glasgow], I was really worried and didn’t know how my leg would cope.”
In Moscow, Klishina beat athletes including Lyudmila Kolchanova, a former European champion and World Championships runnerup, to claim the title at the IAAF-sponsored indoor meet.
Compatriot and Daegu silver medalist Olga Kucherenko is the only athlete to have jumped further than Klishina this year, posting 6.91 in Krasnodar and 6.87 in Volgograd last month.
Klishina said that the Olympic Games in London remained her main focus.
“It goes without saying that there are now some small steps to prepare for London and for the selections. There’s just one competition left for me this season,” she said, referring to the Russian Championships in Moscow starting February 22.
Klishina won gold at the European Indoor Championships in Paris in March 2011, and set a championship record and personal best of 7.05 meters to win the European Under-23 Championships in Ostrava in July.
