Olympics chances high: Anju

Rating her medal chances at next year's Athens Olympics "high", long jumper Anju B George said she is training hard to improve her performance.

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Anju's husband and coach Robert 'Bobby' George said she is looking to improve her mark by at least a foot.

"She is speedy to support her height, but is now aiming to pick up more energy to improve her mark by at least another 30 cm," he said.

Lamenting the poor infrastructure available for athletes in the country, Anju said had she got sufficient exposure at the international level a little earlier, her performance would have been much better.

"The kind of training we receive in Europe is highly professional with sports medicine experts taking care of our requirements," she said.

To a query, Anju said she will take a decision on continuing to train under Mike Powell after going through next year's official calendar of the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Anju said she will resume training in Bangalore from Friday in preparation for the Afro-Asian Games.

"I am ticking 6.74m regularly here [in India] and want to improve it by another 30 cm to take it beyond 7m," she said.

She said media coverage of athletics has gone up considerably during the last year and people are gradually gaining awareness about the sport.

"I should say the media support has been excellent during this year and we athletes are being recognised by the people very well," Anju said.

She also thanked the Tamil Nadu and Kerala governments for granting huge prize-money for winning the bronze medal in the World Athletics Championships in Paris.

"The incentives would be utilised to improve my performance further," she said.

The couple also suggested the need for a football-cum-athletics track in the Malabar region, to which they belong.