European Athletics – (EAA) – News – Hellebaut plans for getting back on the podium in Göteborg

Tia Hellebaut is plotting her path to the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Göteborg – with a 2013 high jump challenge that can be hers alone.

Belgian Hellebaut, 34, will return to the Swedish city where she won her first major title in 2006 when she became outdoor European champion.

But now a mum of two, she is hoping to improve on the 1.97m she achieved at last year's Olympic Games as she returned to the sport after having her second child.

This summer's World Championships are also very much on the agenda for Hellebaut who is warm-weather training in South Africa.

She is not in top shape yet and plans to lose two to three kilograms as she looks to make the podium in Sweden.

Hellebaut's second daughter Saartje was born in 2011 and at London, in the defence of her Olympic crown from Beijing, she was fifth with a "post-pregnancy personal best".

Her PB is 2.05m and she will look to edge closer to that in the months ahead.

Hellebaut competes for the first time this year in Arnstadt, Germany, on February 2 and speaking to www.nieuwsblad.be, she said: "The training sessions have been going very well.

"There have not been too many aches or other interruptions, so I can already look back on the winter training.

"We have been training harder and longer than last winter.

"I'm really looking forward to getting back into competition."

Along with Arnstadt, she is eyeing up also competing in Ghent on February 10.

Hellebaut, who was Belgium's flag-bearer at London 2012, can have good memories of Göteborg after her glory there in 2006.

In a tremendous event, she won on count back with a championship record of 2.03m a height matched by Bulgaria's Venelina Veneva in second.

European Athletics – (EAA) – News