Having seen his partner Stacey Kemp battle through the pain barrier this season, David King insists nothing can slow them down as they bid for 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics success.
The figure skating duo have enjoyed themselves already this campaign, having wrapped up their tenth national title back in December – their eighth senior gold – at the British Championships.
But the good times didn’t stop there as they went on to Zagreb for the European Championships, going on to finish tenth.
And these results are made all the more impressive considering the duo were recovering from injuries – King suffering an ankle ligament tear and Kemp spending ten weeks on the sidelines with a knee problem.
However, with the walking wounded having come through these tests with flying colours, King admits confidence couldn’t be higher as their Sochi preparations move on to the World Championships in Canada next month.
“We are having a very successful season so far, especially when you consider the injury problems we have had,” 28-year-old King said.
“We won our tenth national title back in December and that was a great result considering that in the build-up we had to take ten weeks out after Stacey had torn her posterior cruciate ligament in the back of her knee.
“That meant that we obviously couldn’t train as much as we would have liked and we missed our two Grand Prix but to come back and finish in the top ten of the Europeans was a great result.
“You do wonder what could have been if we had been able to compete at the Grands Prix and had those ten weeks back but we are happy with where we are right now moving on to Sochi.
“But doing as well as we did with that setback has given us confidence ahead of the World Championships and although we have been concentrating on just getting back to fitness and haven’t thought too much about it we are really looking forward to it now.”
If King and Kemp still needed inspiration for next year’s Games then they found it in abundance last summer after witnessing London 2012.
And despite admitting that Sochi will be very different to London, King can’t wait to carry on the good feeling within British sport.
“Obviously it won’t be the same being a British athlete in Sochi than it was in London but it did give us some indication of what to expect and the London Olympics as a whole were so inspiring,” he added.
“Vancouver was just an amazing atmosphere when we competed at the last Olympics and having seen London we are sure that Sochi will be even better.
“Our free programme has a very traditional British feel to it as we were inspired by London 2012 and hopefully it will help us get some more good results.
“We are pleased that we can head to Sochi having got an Olympics out of the way and now we can’t wait to get to Russia.”
© Sportsbeat 2013