Nairobi: World 800m record holder David Rudisha has called for patience as he cautiously works his way back to action after three years of absence due to injury.
Rudisha has been changing projected return dates for over 18 months. After his injury in 2017, he said he planned to return to action in June 2018, then he pushed it to December and later said August last year was possible.
But for the first time, there is a ray of hope the 30-year-old may have run off his fitness problems and will be back on the road to competition, reports Xinhua news agency.
"I have always had a nagging injury, every time I try to push myself to a certain level, I start feeling some pain," Rudisha said on Monday.
The Olympic champion has for long suffered an upper hamstring muscle, a similar problem that saw him miss out defending his crown at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow.
Although Rudisha has reduced the number of visits to the doctors, in Kenya and the Netherlands, he can now start dreaming of returning to competition, and not necessarily getting to the fitness level for him to imagine clinching a third gold at the Tokyo Olympics.
"I don't want to go back to competition with the attitude that I am invincible David Rudisha. That I can do it just like I did it in the 2012 season. No. With that mentality, I could easily pick up another problem. I have to go slow like a beginner," Rudisha assessed his chances. IANS