Swimming: Jackson wants to make a splash after year of illness

Olympic 400metres freestyle bronze medallist Jo Jackson has no idea what to expect at next week's European Championships in Budapest after a traumatic year beset by illness.

The 23-year-old has had a gruelling time since completing a superb season in 2009 in which she set two world records and won two silver medals and a bronze at last summer's World Championships in Rome.

However, things started to go wrong when she contracted bronchitis and from there it was a swift downward spiral with severe asthma brought about by flu and a chest infection.

As a result of having to breathe so much harder, Jackson's ribs were popping out during training, decimating her endurance winter work with the Richmond swimmer either unable to train at all or enduring at most six sessions a week compared to her usual 10 in the pool and three in the gym.

Jackson still competed at the Commonwealth and European trials in Sheffield in March, managing third in the 200m free, but the effort left her struggling to breathe.

Despite her problems, Jackson was selected for the Europeans and will contest the 200m and 400m freestyle - where she will again face rivals Federica Pellegrini and Rebecca Adlington - as well as the 4x100m and 4x200m relays.

Jackson has her asthma 99 per cent under control and has built up her training although not always at full tilt and is in the dark as to how she will perform.

Jackson said: "I really don't know how it's going to go. I've had a few good weeks of good training but to me the Commonwealths is the main aim for this year.

"So I am going in just wanting to race as well as I can, do the best times and hopefully improve on what I've done and not have any issues while I'm there."

She admits the event at Ponds Forge was particularly difficult and on her darkest days feared she may not make it back into competition.

"The year before I'd had such a good year and I wanted to get in there and swim as well as I could but I couldn't do it so I was so frustrated," she added.

"And not being able to breathe and stuff - it is such a horrible feeling, it's not something you want.

"I just thought if it carried on I couldn't keep getting in there and racing like that, putting myself under that much pressure and making myself ill."