Ashia hopes for happy new year

Hansen is desperate for an injury-free year

By BBC Sport Online's Tom Fordyce

Ashia Hansen could be forgiven for looking enviously in the direction of Jonathan Edwards.

Whereas Britain's best male triple-jumper has enjoyed a wonderful last two years, winning world and Olympic titles, our finest woman has endured the sort of luck you would only expect if you had run over a lorry-load of black cats.

The injuries Hansen has suffered would be bad enough on their own.

Having to also go through a humiliating court case, which ended with her ex-boyfriend jailed for two years after staging a bogus race-hate attack on himself, would have finished weaker characters.

Edmonton brought Hansen disappointment

"I can't dwell on what happened last year," she says firmly, "but I've come out on the other side much stronger mentally.

"I had a lot of help from my friends and family and also my sports psychologist, and that helped get me through the ordeal.

"I'm fully back to normal, and it's nice to get back to what I enjoy doing - training and competing."

That is all Hansen will say on the matter, although she admits in private that she was close to giving up athletics.

She would rather look to the future with an optimism based on considerable - albeit somewhat unfulfilled - talent.

On her day she is the match of any jumper in the world. Unfortunately, there have not been enough of those days when it really mattered.

Injury problems

Injury has been the main contributory factor.

At last summer's World Championships she finished a lowly seventh, a full metre down on her best, having missed a large part of the outdoor season with Achilles problems.

Her Olympics in Sydney were wrecked by the same injury. Desperately short of competition, she managed just one legal jump in the final and never looked like getting amongst the medals.

If I didn't think I could be the best in the world, I wouldn't be bothering to compete

Ashia Hansen

For athletes at least, life seldom begins at 30. Hansen is now a month into her 31st year, acutely aware that she will not have many more shots at the big prizes.

The difference, she hopes, is that she has identified where those debilitating injuries were coming from.

Too many injuries

"I was over-training and had all the symptoms associated with that. I was always tired, I was depressed and I was picking up niggles.

"A good athlete would go to the physio and get treatment for those little niggles, but I didn't bother, and I paid the price.

"It's over four years since I set my personal best. But I'm in much better shape than I was then.

"I'm so much better technically, I'm injury-free and I'm much lighter. If I didn't think I could be the best in the world, I wouldn't be bothering to compete."

Hansen celebrates World Indoor gold in 1999

Hansen will make her first appearance of the year at the Norwich Union Trials and AAA Championships in Cardiff on 2 February, and follow that by competing in front of her home Birmingham crowd at the Norwich Union Indoor Grand Prix a fortnight later.

She has traditionally done far better indoors than out, taking the world indoor title in 1999 with a world record jump that still stands.

This time around, she is viewing the indoor season as a stepping-stone towards the bigger prizes on offer in the summer.

With a Commonwealth gold from 1998 already on the mantelpiece, her focus will instead be on the Olympic Stadium in Munich in August.

"My main target is definitely the European Championships. I don't want to sound big-headed, but none of my major rivals will be at the Commonwealths.

"There's only one girl who can jump in the 14.70m range, whereas the Europeans will be much, much tougher. In terms of the calibre of athlete who'll be there, it's on par with the Olympics for me.

"After all the problems I've had, this is a huge season for me. I won't be holding anything back."

Tickets for all three big indoor meetings in Britain are still available from the 24-hour Ticketmaster Hotline [phone]) or via www.ticketmaster.co.uk.