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| Italian long jumper Antoniette Di Martino at the European Athletics and Paris 2011 LOC official press conference on Thursday. |
Italian high jump star Antonietta Di Martino hopes her luck has finally turned and she can strike gold at the European Athletics Indoor Championships on Sunday after a career marred by injury, illness and just rank bad fortune.
Di Martino goes into Saturday’s qualification round at the Palais Omnisport De Paris-Bercy in good spirits. In Banska Bystrica, Slovakia last month she bettered her own national record with a stunning 2.04m clearance.
She is unbeaten in all three competitions this season and as European leader the 32-year-old starts clear favourite to become the first Italian to land this title since Sara Simeoni secured her fourth and final European Indoor gold 30 years ago, ironically also here in France (Grenoble).
Yet after a career in which she has undergone two ankle surgeries and a prolonged period on the sidelines with glandular fever, Di Martino could be forgiven from feeling a little uptight about the level of expectation thrust upon her.
So how was she coping?
“I’m not feeling any pressure because I’m fit and well,” she said. “Being a favourite is nothing because performing is just down to me and my will, finally.”
Raised in the small town of Cava de’ Tirreni south of Naples, Di Martino started life as a heptathlete before switching to the high jump despite standing at just 1.69m tall – some 24cm shorter than World and European champion Blanka Vlasic.
She made her international breakthrough in her new event in 2001, placing 12th at the World Championships in Edmonton, however, a succession of ankle problems marred her progression for several years and it was not until she finished fifth at the 2006 World Indoor Championships did she finally return to international championship competition.
Fit and well prepared she catapulted herself into world-class in 2007, snaring silver medals at the 2007 European Indoor Championships and World Championships in Osaka and also smashing Simeoni’s long-standing Italian record. Her best that year of 2.03m pointed to better times ahead yet glandular fever intervened and another frustrating period of her career followed.
Her bad luck even extended to the 2009 European Athletics Indoor Championships in Torino in her native Italy. One of the main host nation’s main hopes for gold, Di Martino woke up on the morning of the qualification with a fever and was forced to withdraw.
Last year, though, she hinted at a full recovery by winning the European Team Championship in Bergen. However, Di Martino bewilderingly failed to qualify for the final at the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona and that bitter blow led to urgent action. She launched into her winter training programme much earlier than normal and has worked harder on becoming leaner.
“I’ve tried to maintain my strength and lose my body mass, although I’m not really any different in terms of my weight,” she explained.
She trained her three weeks in San Diego, California with her coach and husband, Massimilliano Di Matteo, before the indoor season began and has clearly reaped the benefit of an injury-free winter.
Besides her stunning 2.04m national record performance the Italian also secured victory with 1.95m in Dessau and a 1.92m clearance in Karlsruhe was enough to defeat two of her main rivals here in Paris, the Russian pair Viktoriya Klyugina and Svetlana Shkolina.
So to the crunch question, after a 2.04m effort earlier this winter how much higher does she think she can soar?
“I was surprised with the height but for years I always knew I was capable of this result,” she added. “I don’t know if I can go any higher. I don’t like to put any limits on it.”