Diving champion Matthew Mitcham is confident a long-term injury won't derail his plans of successfully defending his Olympic title in London next year.
Mitcham will take the first step towards that goal at the national championships in Adelaide starting on Thursday, where he will dive a watered-down repertoire because of a serious abdominal injury initially suffered back in April.
The 23-year-old, who won gold in the 10m platform in Beijing when he posted the highest single-dive score in Olympic history, has only returned to diving for two weeks after missing the Shanghai World Championships in July.
"I've been in intensive rehabilitation for the last few months and only just started diving again," Mitcham said.
"The dives that have the most loading on my abs, I've had to scale down because I'm still suffering from pain."
The top two divers from this competition qualify for the World Cup in London in February, which importantly doubles as an Olympic trial and is where he will face English teenage prodigy Tom Daley and Chinese divers Qiu Bo and Huo Liang.
Mitcham considered asking for an exemption but decided that he would compete, confident he would still qualify with his scaled down list of dives.
"I didn't want to rely on my name and I also think competing with adversity and limited preparation could be good in case the same thing happens before the Olympics," he said.
Despite winning four Commonwealth Games silver medals in various categories, the Sydney-based diver has decided to focus solely on his speciality, the 10m platform ahead of London.
"I don't want anything to jeopardise my chances of winning a gold medal in London."
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