Anna Chicherova says 2003 has been an experimental year

24 August

Today we arrived at the Athletes Village in Paris. It is a marvellous small village. I came very early, my final will take place only on the last day of the championships and the coaches are worried that this will put a big mental pressure on me to wait so many days for the competitions.

I do not know yet how it will influence my jumps. I think about another more serious problem. It is my back. I am still feeling the pain which began before the National championships. I must use the time in Paris to cure it. We have a good doctor with our team.

26 August

There is still pain in my back. And I am afraid it is growing. I can not make all the training which I need now. It looks like I will be jumping on my old potential. I start feeling a little bit nervous. Today I watched the competitions on the big screen in the village, and everything is becoming very emotional. It is the first big championships in my life. The pressure is rising.

31 August

It looks like everything is against me. It is a huge bad luck. During the warm up before the jumps I made two rather good attempts, I was ready to fight for the medal and then I got one more injury – I felt a sharp pain in my knee. And I did not even began to compete. So I now have a double pain. I do not know why it has happened. Maybe I don’t have enough basic strength.

But in this situation I managed to jump 1.95m and be the 6th. It is pity that I could not participate in the battle, I know there was a chance to be among the leaders. But at the same time it was very interesting to watch the jumps of the other girls. I do not want to copy the style of their jumps but there is one main thing I must to do. I need to concentrate all my strength and beat them.

1 September

I arrived back in Moscow and first of all I had a telephone talk with my parents. They are very disappointed and my mother most of all. They were all hoping I would bring a medal back. I am waiting very much for the moment when I’ll see them but it will happen only after 20 of September.

I returned to my flat at the Students hostel and I see that it is time to make some repair. And now I have one more task. It is my last fifth year of my study at Academy of sports and physical culture, I must be ready to pass the exams in the Olympic year. I hope my teachers will take that into account. I continue to cure my injuries, it is impossible to renew a good daily training despite the pain.

12 September

I come to Monte-Carlo for the first time. It is a very beautiful and fantastic place. I like everything here, the houses, the weather, the friendly people. But I am worried about tomorrow’s competition. All this season has been an experiment for me. And now I know that I have given too much to the indoor competitions, and at the same time I was not prepared to such overpressure.  Next time I’ll do it in a different way.

13 September

I stopped my competition when I jumped 1.83m. I am very disappointed. Suddenly I felt that something was wrong again with my knee and I thought that it would be very risky to continue jumping. I am afraid, that the injury will get worse. At the same time I knew that I was not in a good shape to fight with the best high jumpers. But other Russian jumpers also could not make their best. I think that we all have given too much force in the fight for the place in the team, when our championships became a big nervous battle. It has broken some of us.

Now I am a strange condition. I have got too many drugs to cure the injury. I have lost the feeling that I am ready to jump. Sometimes I feel like a spring which is ready to push me very high. I am like a loaded gun. But when you have lost this readiness, it is difficult to show any good result.

I must be very grateful to my friends and coaches who helped me in the hard moments and tried to support me. Some people say that I participated in too many meetings. But I think that this injury was unavoidable, it could have come at any time. I may have suffered a lot this year but still I have learnt very important lessons.

Anna