Like 1.2 million other Britons Kelly Sotherton was left disappointed by the Olympic ticketing fiasco in which only one in three applicants was successful.
And like the majority of those jilted athletics fans her determination to find a way into the Olympic Stadium in 12 months time remains steadfast.
“I will crawl in somewhere. I am sure I will,” the 34-year-old promises.
However, unlike the rest of us, Sotherton has another option should the sewers and air-conditioning pipes prove too labyrinthine to navigate.
“I need to get in the team,” she laughs, not really joking at all. “I went for triple jump tickets, the prelims and the final, the high end ones and unfortunately I wasn’t lucky either time.”
Strangely, an event that bears all too close a resemblance to something performed in an infant playground, has proved to be one of the hottest tickets in town.
Phillips Idowu, who trains in Birmingham with Sotherton, and his rivalry with the brilliantly inconsistent Frenchman Teddy Tamgho have much to do with that.
The sport’s cognoscenti expect these gifted contemporaries to drive each other past the mystical 18-metre mark achieved by only two other men in the history of the hop, skip and jump.
That might happen in Daegu next month when the IAAF World Championships visit South Korea but Sotherton and the rest of athletics are secretly holding out for August 9, 2012.
Not that Sotherton doesn’t have her own plans. The Birchfield Harrier is not merely an interested spectator and as one of only a handful of active British athletes to have won an Olympic medal, her competitive juice has far from run dry.
Which is why she is working towards a date six days before Idowu and Tamgho get anywhere near the stadium she once warned could be a white elephant.
After all heats for the women’s 400m are due to take place on August 3 next year and Sotherton has dedicated the final months of her career to excelling at a second disciplines.
Everyone knows Kelly Sotherton the heptathlete, the gifted multi-eventer who surprised herself when she took bronze in Athens seven years ago.
Not many know Sotherton the one-lapper, though, a fact that is largely down to the rapacious injuries that forced her to switch from the event she loves.
“It’s a lot less interesting, I would rather be doing heptathlon,” she admits. “Last year it was either heptathlon, retire, cycling or 400m.
“I wasn’t going to retire, I had to give up the heptathlon and cycling was probably a little bit late to make the decision to change – two years before the Olympics. So I decided to give 400m a go because my heart and soul are in athletics.”
