For some athletes equalling a personal best for a second time would be the definition of frustrating but Jessica Leach is just happy to have returned to the level she reached before injury cost her a year of her career.

The 21-year-old Birchfield Harrier was second in the high jump at the Bedford International Games last weekend and in doing so cleared her lifetime record of 1.82 metres for the first time since July 2006.

It was the third occasion that the Stourbridge-based athlete, who along with 400m runner Jordan McGrath has been selected by Original Source to receive backing as one of their Athletics Heroes, has jumped the height and the third she has missed out on going even higher.

But Leach, who joined Birchfield in the off-season, believes a new personal best is just around the corner and that she could set one this Saturday in the first UK Women's League match of the season.

She missed the entire 2007 campaign after having two screws inserted into her foot because of a stress fracture. She had not competed at all outdoors for two years until returning at Bedford last month where she won the Inter-Counties Championships with 1.80m.

"The injury was terrible," Leach says. "I was in plaster for three months, in a walking boot for several weeks after that and then I could not do anything other than very light training. It was only last October that I got back to proper training by which time I'd missed half the winter.

"I was really frustrated at the weekend because I should have jumped 1.85m but I wasn't feeling very well. I have got a head cold and things just weren't right for me, I wasn't in competition mode. But I've cleared 1.87m training in Italy with UK Athletics so I know I can do it, hopefully it'll come this weekend. That said though I'm just pleased to have got back to the level I was at before my injury."

Leach has still not given up hope of reaching this summer's Olympic Games though she would have to improve massively to attain even the B qualifying standard.

"I have to get 1.91m and do it not once but consistently," she says. "But I am going at a bar even higher than that in training and doing well so there's no reason why I can't get there.

"I have got all the support I need in terms of training at the High Performance Centre with my coach Fayyaz Ahmed. I went to Beijing for the World Junior Championships in 2006 and it was a brilliant experience - I'd love to get back there this year."

Meanwhile, Dwain Chambers' former manager John Regis believes the former drug cheat should not be allowed to compete in Beijing.

Chambers runs over 100 metres in Kalamata, Greece, today and if he clocks 10.85 seconds or faster he will have achieved the qualifying time for next month's National Championships in Birmingham which doubles as the Olympic trials.

Victory at the trials would normally guarantee automatic selection for the Games and should the 30-year-old Belgrave Harrier triumph at the Alexander Stadium he is expected to challenge the Olympic lifetime ban imposed on all anti-doping offenders by the British Olympic Association.

Regis supported Chambers' return to the sport in 2006 after completing his two-year suspension and still thinks he should be allowed to continue his athletics career.

However, the former European 200m champion is adamant Chambers should not be allowed to pursue his Olympic ambitions, having been well aware that drugs offences carried a lifetime ban in Britain before he opted to use performance-enhancing substances.