Stevenson happy to build up gradually

TAEKWONDO: Doncaster’s Sarah Stevenson aims to be “cooking with gas” when she rejoins the Team GB taekwondo squad after the European Championships in the next step of her rehabilitation on the road to the 2012 Olympics.

The current world champion and Olympic bronze medallist at the 2008 Beijing Games had surgery in February to repair cruciate ligament damage sustained at a training camp in Mexico.

The 29-year-old will miss this weekend’s European Championships in Manchester, but has until the end of May to prove her fitness ahead of the final selection for the London team, which will have four fighters: two men and two women.

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Stevenson – who overcame great personal difficulties by claiming her world title in Korea last year despite both parents battling serious illness, a fight they eventually lost – remains positive.

“My knee is doing really well and I am getting a lot more kicking sessions in now,” Stevenson said in her Olympic diary for a national newspaper.

“Once the rest of the guys have finished competing at the Europeans, my aim is to be back with them in a couple of weeks’ time, hopefully cooking with gas at 100 per cent.

“That’s the target, but even if I am at 90 per cent for a while and capable of doing most of the sessions with them, then I will be happy with that.”