After months of rehabilitation and setbacks Swedish high-jumper Ebba Jungmark is finding her way back to the track.
She had got off to a brilliant start to last season with a silver medal at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in front of the home crowd in Gothenburg with a personal best of 1.96m.
This breakthrough in her career was brutishly halted by an ankle injury which prevented her from competing at the IAAF World Championships last summer in Moscow.
“This period away from the track I had both ups and downs. At first I was nervous when I would put pressure on my foot to jump in training, but now it feels fantastic to jump again,” Jungmark told gp.se.
After being side-lined for more than eight months, the Swede is starting to lose patience and is excited about making her return.
“I just want to jump more and more, even though the bar is not very high right now, I feel in better shape than ever,” she continued.
Her coach Emil Predan has been monitoring her every step of the way to ensure that 2014 will be a good year and more importantly one where she will remain injury free.
“Ebba has done incredibly well and has a tremendous will. But there is still some way until she is able to compete, so we need to be safe,” he said.
Initially, they had planned for her to compete in May, but instead preferred to postpone her return to be sure she is fully ready to start preparing for the important events over the summer.
Her main objective remains the European Athletics Championships in Zurich 12-17 August and she could well be one of the surprises in Switzerland.
In any case, Jungmark is motivated to be at her best alongside Swedish teammate Emma Green-Tregaro who was third in Gothenburg and will also be aiming for a medal in Zurich.
“When my morale was low during the winter I would think about being on the podium with Emma in Gothenburg.”