(triple jump)

Ashia Hansen unquestionably has the ability to win a major championship medal, her best performances show that.

But she has yet to reap the medals her form has often promised to deliver.

A fourth place at the Atlanta Olympics in the fledgling event saw Hansen just miss a medal and it was a similar tale in the 1997 World Championship when the Brit finished in fifth place.

That year ended with Hansen leaping out to a Commonwealth record of 15.15m in the Grnad Prix final and the following winter the world seemed her oyster as she set a world indoor record at the European Indoor Championships.

The next 12 months brought Commonwealth gold and a World Indoor title. But much of 1999 was a struggle and a jump of only 13.39m in the World Chmapionship final in Seville was a bitter disappointment considering what she had achieved before.

Sadly for Hansen, who was born in America and spent six years of her childhood in Ghana, there was further misery in store at the Sydney Olympics where a case of déjà vu saw Hansen managed just 13.44m in the final.

A proportion of Hansen's poor form over the past 18 months should be attributed to events far from the sand pit.

A high-profile court case saw her former boyfriend jailed for staging a fake race attack and sending race-hate mail to Hansen.

This season Hansen's best jump is 14.09m which won the world trials at the AAA Championships in Birmingham. This is still well behind the world leaders this season, but if Hansen can find top form, she will be a contender.