European Athletics (EA) – News – Weekend preview: Delight for Vlasic as her long wait is over

The Croatian high jumper, the double world champion and 2010 European champion, is competing at the Diamond League meeting in New York after winning her battle with injury and illness.

A broken bone in her ankle in late 2011 was then compounded with an infection that meant she had to miss last summer.

But now she is back and cannot wait for the challenge of being out there again in an event where she will face American Brigetta Barrett, who won silver in London, and Sweden’s Emma Green Tregaro, the bronze medallist from the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Göteborg in March.

Speaking with the Associated Press, Vlasic, 29, revealed how excited she is.

"I just can't wait," she said. "I can't wait to feel that pre-competition nervousness, the positive excitement, to be the part of that circuit again. I don't want to expect anything. But I still have my hopes."

Vlasic, who has an outdoor personal best of 2.08m, the joint-second highest in history, is not predicting how she will do. The important part is that she is back again and will rebuild her competitive edge.

Her determination not to quit sees her return for the third Diamond League meeting of the season which forms part of one of the busiest weekends for track and field across the globe.

The first event in New York will be the women’s discus with Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic ready to add to her victory from the first Diamond League meeting in Doha a fortnight ago.

She won on that night with 68.23m from the final round. It was a meeting record and the best throw in the world this year.

It was back in March, at the European Cup Winter Throwing in Castellon, that Russian Mariya Abajumova soared to the top of the javelin world rankings with 69.34m.

Over two months on from that day, she remains at the top of the listings and will have to be at her best again on Saturday when she faces tough opposition in the form of Ukraine’s former world junior champion Vira Rebryk who threw 64.30m a week ago in Yalta.

Phillips Idowu was one of Britiain’s big hopes for triple jump gold in London before struck. He competed but did not make the Olympic final and on Saturday he meets the man who won the title – American Christian Taylor.

Holly Bleasdale was also a big British hope for 2012 yet she failed to make an impact at the Olympics.

But from that disappointment came a resolve to succeed even more as she proved in style when she won the pole vault gold medal in Göteborg.

And now she is part of one of the most competitive events in New York when she faces America’s Olympic champion Jenn Suhr.

Billed as the best women’s pole vault ever to take place in the USA, the field also includes Cuba’s Yarisley Silva, who won silver in London, and leading Europeans Silke Spiegelburg of Germany, and  Jiřina Svobodová of the Czech Republic.

It is about 3,330 miles from New York to Manchester and on Saturday in England an athletics meeting with a difference is being staged  – the Great CityGames.

A specially constructed track, and separate jumping pit, will be built in the city centre for a series of outstanding events.

On the track, French sprinter Christophe Lemaitre, the double European 100m champion, faces Dwain Chambers over 150m while in the women’s race over that distance Jodie Williams, Britain's double European Junior champion, meets America’s multi-Olympic champion Allyson Felix.

Rutherford will receive a hero’s welcome – and he cannot believe it is nearly a year since he leaped to glory in the Olympic Stadium.

He said: “It is still almost impossible to put into words. I can’t believe it almost a year ago, that is something which is unreal, and it was the most emotional and the most incredible moment of my career.