The long jumper ignited the nation's hopes that an Indian could win an Olympic athletics medal for the first time in history when she took bronze in the world championships last year.

George rose to the Olympic challenge by announcing boldly that she had set herself the ambitious target of jumping seven metres during at least one of the dozen meetings she had lined up on the road to Athens in August.

"There is no point setting the same goal. This time the goal has to be higher," George told Reuters. "You can expect a medal from me."

But, so far, things are not going to plan.

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The 27-year-old George jumped 6.66 metres to comfortably win a national meeting last month, but was clearly unhappy with her performance. Hands on hips and disappointment etched on her face, she glanced up at husband and coach Bobby in the stands after each jump.

Last weekend, George, who set a personal best of 6.74 in 2001, finished fourth when she jumped only 6.46 at the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) grand prix in Osaka, Japan.

The Asian Games champion is rated as India's best athletics prospect at the August 13-29 Athens Games, but George knows she will have to do much better if she is to create history.

The Sydney Olympic gold medal was won by German Heike Drechsler with a jump of 6.99 metres. Frenchwoman Eunice Barber jumped the same distance to win the world title in Paris.

HOUSEHOLD NAME

George became a household name in her cricket-mad country when she became the first Indian to win a medal at the world championships with a jump of 6.70 metres in Paris.

The 1.70-metre tall athlete had also won a bronze medal at the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, with 6.49 metres, and the Asian Games gold in South Korea with 6.53.

"An Olympic medal will round off her achievements and go nicely with her other medals," said Bobby George, himself a former national level triple jumper.

Critics say Athens will be far tougher than Paris, with American Marion Jones, who was absent from the championships after giving birth to a son in June, back in action.

They also say George seems to have reached a plateau, not having gone past her national mark in two years.

But Bobby George brushes aside such arguments.

"In terms of performance, it was not a great year last year," he says. "We were experimenting with a lot of things but we know what is required this time."

Success for George in Athens would be of great import in India, erasing the pain of past Olympic failures by Indian athletes.

"Flying Sikh" Milkha Singh, regarded as India's greatest ever athlete, went to Rome in 1960 as a gold-medal contender in the 400 metres, but agonisingly missed a medal by one-tenth of a second despite a time faster than the then world record.

P.T.Usha, the Asian track queen of the 1980s with 11 Asian Games medals and George's idol, made the 400m hurdles finals in Los Angeles in 1984, but was pipped to fourth in a photo finish despite setting a personal best of 55.42 seconds.

Gurbachan Singh Randhawa was fifth in the 110m hurdles in Tokyo in 1964 while Sriram Singh led in the first lap before fading to seventh in the 800m final at Montreal in 1976.

ANKLE INJURY

But George says she will not be weighed down by history. "Whatever happened in the past, there is no pressure on me."

Born Anju Markose in Kerala which has provided many of the country's top athletes, George made rapid progress in long jump and triple jump and won a long jump silver medal in the South Asian Federation (SAF) Games in 1999.

Her career almost ended soon after that following a serious ankle injury which sidelined her for two years and forced her to miss the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

But George undertook a rigorous training regime to return with a vengeance, setting her Indian record in 2001 and equalling it the following year.

Her marriage to Bobby George, younger brother of India's greatest volleyball player Jimmy George, gave her the impetus she needed when he took over as her full-time coach to meticulously plan her rise.

George received a further boost last year when she had a training stint at the Californian academy of men's world record holder Mike Powell. He made crucial changes to her technique and travelled to European meetings to monitor her progress.

She finished in the top six in three out of four meetings, coming second in the Super Grand Prix in Stockholm and fifth in the grand prix final in Monaco, though she only just made it to that meeting after the couple's passports were stolen in Paris.

If she can get closer to her seven-metre target in the next three months, a medal could follow in Athens, immortalising her as the greatest Indian athlete.

Bobby feels his wife derived huge benefit from last year's experience on the European circuit. "She's gained maturity, both psychologically and physically," he said.