It was a grotesque turn of events for a young athlete gathering speed towards the ambition she had long cherished of competing at a home Games.  "I remember lying down and looking at my leg and I could see the bone underneath the skin at an odd angle," she later told Athletics Weekly. "It was a spiral fracture, diagonally up the bone, with a shard broken off at the back."


Twell (pictured) now runs with a metal plate in that ankle, having endured more than 200 hours of physiotherapy to try and get back her full range of movement in the joint. It is a tribute to her indomitable ambition that Twell, who finished fifth in the British trials at Liverpool the weekend before last, will be back in these championships once again as they return to Slovenia for the first time since 1999. She will compete in the under23 category alongside training partner Emma Pallant – both of their careers are guided by Mick Woods – and Hannah Walker.

Team and individual medals could be in the offing, although there is likely to be a very strong challenge too from Turkey, due to field the defending individual under 23 champion, Meryem Erdoğan, if she manages to shake off a persistent Achilles tendon problem, and Gülcan Mingir, this year's European under 23 steeplechase champion.

The wider world is likely to focus its gaze on the two defending champions to see if Portugal's Jessica Augusto can repeat her runaway performance on the home soil of Albufeira, or if Serhiy Lebid of the Ukraine, who won his first title in 1998, can push his number of individual gold medals into double figures.


If Lebid (pictured), now 36, can win again it will be a staggering achievement. He is already the only runner to have competed in every version of these Championships since they stated in 1994, and last year's win took his total to nine in 17 attempts. The Ukrainian has already wryly acknowledged that Britain's world 10,000m champion Mo Farah will once again not be contesting the title this year, adding: "But look at last year's race – I had to work really hard to beat some good French, Spanish and Portuguese runners. Nobody ever lets me have an easy time."

But for British followers of the sport, who doubtless welcome the news that the event can be followed on a live feed with an English commentary via the European Athletics website, it is Twell whose performance is likely to be sought most eagerly, given her talent and the dramatic turn of events she has recently experienced.

Five years ago in the Milan suburb of San Giorgio su Legnano, Twell's Olympic ambitions were writ large after she had won the first big gold of her career in the junior race, preceding the victory in the men's senior event which was the first big gold of Farah's career.

For Farah, this win in 2006 provided gold after six silvers, the most recent of which had come in that summer's European 5000m final. Asked afterwards if his growing collection of silver had begun to become a bit of a nag to him, he conceded: "It was a bit."


Since then, Farah (pictured) has charged on, taking double European gold four years later before adding world silver and gold this year. Although Kenenisa Bekele's late flourish to the season has removed any faint temptation towards triumphalism from the Somali refugee, he is in great shape and a great position for next year's Games.

But Twell, inevitably, has a way to go. Back in 2006, Twell's shining Olympic ambition was manifest in the London 2012 Olympics badge which glinted on her running vest. The badge – worn whenever she raced, or trained – was a constant symbol of intent. She said she even pinned it to her pyjamas at night.

Twell's father, Andy – an Army Major based in Cyprus – looked on proudly as she ran what her coach, Mick Woods, described afterwards as "a perfect race",  finishing 15m clear of Norway's Karoline Grovdal and the previous year's winner and favourite this time round, Ancuţa Bobocel of Romania.

Twell and her team mates had received good-luck emails before the race from Paula Radcliffe, who had reminded them of how she had won on the same course four years earlier. "I was thinking about Paula's message as I was warming up for the race," said Twell, who had recently viewed the site of the London Olympic stadium from the 23rd-floor offices of the London 2012 chairman, Seb Coe. "It was incredible to see where I would be competing. My ambition is to do whatever it takes to be on that start line."

The question now is, will the European Cross, which has suited her so well over the years, continue to prove a profitable hunting ground?


For Radcliffe (pictured #292), victory in the European Cross Country Championships of 1998 provided her first big gold, albeit that she had won the European Cup 5000m in St Petersburg earlier that year. The event has also proved to be the high point in the career of Radcliffe's friend and former team-mate Hayley Yelling, who won it in 2004 and, gloriously, 2009, after she had thought better of her decision to retire.

The inaugural European Cross Country championships, run at Alnwick in 1994, proved similarly profitable for Ireland's Catherina McKiernan, who had won three successive silvers in the world cross country championships before winning in the north-east. Again, it was her first big golden marker. McKiernan was narrowly beaten once again in the world cross of 1995, when Ethiopia's Olympic 10,000m champion Derartu Tulu proved to have too much acceleration at the end of their duel in Durham.

After marking Tulu's performance with characteristic grace and sportsmanship, McKiernan did allow herself the following comment (spoken very quietly, of course): "God has to be good and he has to help me win one year." Whether God is good, or whether God does or does not exist, McKiernan did get to win one year – indeed, in more than one year, although it was not over the country, but on the roads, as she finished first in the 1997 Berlin marathon in what was the fastest ever debut by a woman and went on to win the London race the following year.

If talent and determination have anything to do with it, Twell, who four months ago defiantly restated her ambition as being victory in the London 2012 1500m, will have more moments in the sun.  Once thing is certain: as she stands on the start line in Velenje, she will have that other start line she envisaged from the viewpoint of Coe's office firmly in mind.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the past five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.