"It was the third time I seriously injured the same knee,” the 22-year-old said. “One of these injuries prevented me from going to the Beijing Olympics. I'm pretty injury-prone. And rehabilitation is going to be hard work.”

Vanwalleghem, who won the bronze medal in the 2005 European Championships, is now setting her sights on the World Championships in Rotterdam in October.

Born Anna Maria Pereira Da Silva in Paçao de Padra, Brazil, she was adopted at four months old by a Flemish family and renamed Aagje. She has three Ethiopian-born sisters.

Vanwalleghem has been a gymnast since the age of five and has already racked up a number of feats. Earlier in her career, she became the first female Belgian gymnast to win a World Cup medal, and she finished 23rd in the all-around final at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

She went on to win the bronze medal on vault and place sixth all-around at the 2005 European Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. At the end of 2008, Vanwalleghem won the bronze medal on vault at the World Cup Final in Madrid.

The gymnast trained in her hometown of Wevelgem in 2008 but returned to the Top Gymnastics training centre in Ghent following last year’s European Championships in Milan, where she placed sixth all-around and fourth on vault.

Last year, she had a very public feud with the Flemish Gymnastics Federation after they asked controversial Frenchman Yves Kieffer to be head coach. She walked out on the federation but has since reconciled and now appears to be training well with Kieffer.

At the moment, however, Vanwalleghem is enduring a gruelling and frustrating time. “When I am fit again, I think a big factor will be the fear,” she said on her website. “The fear of another attack and another serious injury. I’m working on it with my sports psychologist.”

www.sport.be/aagjevanwalleghem