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Champion: Anna Hemmings is Britain's most successful female canoeist. Pic: Mark Watson

When Anna Hemmings heads to the British canoeing team's trials in a couple of weeks she hopes to kickstart a summer of sporting success that will end in triumph at the Beijing Olympics in August.

However, just a few years ago Anna's chances of claiming Olympic gold - or even competing in another race - looked incredibly slim.

In 2003 the successful athlete from Wimbledon Village was diagnosed with the serious illness Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), and her sporting career looked finished.

But now, after taking a gamble on a revolutionary form of treatment, she is confident she can win gold in China - and complete a truly remarkable comeback.

Anna, 30, grew up in Shepperton and played a variety of sports as a child. But it was at the age of nine that she first picked up a paddle and discovered flatwater canoeing.

"I started by going on a week long course with my brother and I loved it - and I just carried on from there," she says.

She won the sport's junior world cup at the age of 16. Four years later she won her first European championship, and in 1999 became the youngest competitor ever to hold a senior world title.

She was a semi-finalist at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and in 2001 became only the second person to hold the single and double world marathon titles at the same time.

Olympic dream: Anna has set her sights on winning gold at the Beijing games

However, in 2003 Anna was diagnosed with CFS while preparing for the Athens Olympics. The illness, also known as ME, leaves sufferers constantly exhausted.

Anna went from being a world-beating athlete to someone who would fall asleep at the dinner table and couldn't find the strength to wash her hair.

Despite countless attempts to find a cure, she faced having to give up the sport she loved.

Eventually she turned to reverse therapy, an alternative treatment that works by using psychological techniques to change the behaviour of a gland in the brain that is thought to be at fault in CFS sufferers.

Anna says: "I'd tried so many different things before I read about reverse therapy, but it really made sense to me."

She first had the treatment in September 2004 - and by the end of 2005 had reclaimed the world marathon championship title.

Her astonishing comeback was recognised when she was voted 2007 BBC London Sports Personality of the Year.

Throughout her career Anna has claimed 11 world and European championship medals, making her Britain's most successful female canoeist of all time.

And she is also enjoying a career as a motivational speaker, sharing the story of her amazing recovery with schools and businesses.

She currently trains for around 18 hours a week, either at the Royal Canoe Club in Teddington or on the Olympic course at Eton School - the canoeing venue for London's 2012 games.

Marathon canoeing is a demanding endurance sport that involves paddling up to 30 kilometres in a single race. Athletes also have to drag their canoes out of the water and sprint short distances with them at the end of each race lap.

However, Anna has focused her attention on a different event, the 500m sprint, in the build up to the Beijing games.

And while a gold medal is a real possibility this summer, Anna's incredible experience has left her taking nothing for granted.

"At the moment my priority is to qualify for the British team. It's one step at a time".

12:52pm Thursday 17th April 2008

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