AVELEY long jumper Joshua Olawore insisted his third British Universities title was his sweetest yet after overcoming injury to stand atop the podium again in Sheffield.

Going into the three-day competition, Bath University student Olawore had been struggling with shin splints.

And his rustiness appeared to show in Sunday’s final at the English Institute of Sport as he initially struggled to find his rhythm on the run up.

However he eventually managed to get one spot on and recorded a distance of 7.33m.

It was enough to take victory by just one centimetre from Northumbria’s Scott Hall, and Olawore, who won both the indoor and outdoor British Universities titles last year, admitted it had been touch-and-go whether he would even compete in the competition and revealed only last-minute reassurance from his osteopath Sara Lovett, of Cedar Hall Clinics, convinced him to compete.

“I’ve been going through a lot in training, I’ve been having terrible shin splints,” he explained.

“I called on Sara. So to come here and still manage to get gold is amazing. I wasn’t even expecting to jump to be honest.

“Throughout the rounds I was getting no jumps and I wasn’t hitting the boards at all but the last two jumps I started to get it.

“I got 7.33m, Scott got 7.32m so I was really pleased to come away with the win.

“This is my third British Universities Championships and I’ve got all golds which is pretty amazing. But I would say this is definitely the highlight.”

After his struggles in the early part of the final, Olawore made sure to draw on the advice given to him previously by his coach to stay relaxed.

And he admits it proved invaluable for keeping him ahead of his rivals on the day.

“It’s just about staying relaxed as my coach always says. Once I start trying to push that’s when things go down a bit,” he added.

“If I can stay relaxed and just hit the board right then it tends to be a good jump.

“If I start getting too tight then it goes down.

“I’ve been a national silver medallist but I feel like BUCS is definitely where it’s at for me.

“I just want to be competitive this season.”

l British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) is the national governing body for Higher Education (HE) sport in the UK, organising leagues and competitions for more than 150 institutions across 52 different sports. Partnered by Deloitte, BUCS supports athletes from a grass roots level through to Commonwealth and Olympic Games hopefuls www.bucs.org.uk