Robbie Grabarz happy to set the bar high for Birmingham

There is still tinkering to be done but Robbie Grabarz feels like he is fine fettle heading into the summer’s serious stuff.

The British high jumper, who popped up from nowhere to claim bronze at the London Olympics, has had an awful time in the four intervening years due to injury until he came good at the World Indoor Championships in Portland back in March where he snuck silver. That put the spring back in his jump and now it’s Birmingham this weekend and the Diamond League meeting. Then, of course, further down the track, it’s Rio and the Games.

“I feel really good actually,” Grabarz tells The Independent in a break ahead of the weekend action in front of a home crowd. “Everything is fine. Physically, I’m in a really good place.”

Which is great news for Team GB but Grabarz was still amending, fine-tuning, while competing in Qatar and Morocco lately. “I’ve not quite perfected my shape,” the Enfield jumper says. “I’ve been training but I wanted to compete outdoors as much as possible. So we’ve competed, taken what we can from those events, tweaked things here and there and I’m just trying to improve on it for the rest of the season.

“At the moment I'm not finishing what I'm doing - not running round the bend right at the end. I’m doing things slightly wrong there. I'm just trying to refine that and get that spot on and that will make all the difference.”

And the timing, like it was in London four years ago, is perfect with Birmingham looming. “This is when the outdoor stuff would normally start,” he says. “It will be a massive launch pad for the rest of the season. This is where people start bringing their A game, really start to compete and jump high.”

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Two metres 29 won him bronze in London but Grabarz is now aiming higher to put him up with the golden guys and girls. “I haven’t got 2m 30 outdoors yet this season so that is definitely the first aim,” he says of Birmingham. “That will set me up for the rest of the season. That’s where I want to be, getting used to that again and doing it regularly.

“I’m in good shape and that’s what makes it exciting - that feeling that there is a lot in the tank and I've not laid it down yet.” And in Olympic year that must be especially encouraging? “It’s huge, yes. Everyone is a little bit more conscious of making the right decisions,” Grabarz, who fully intends to travel to Rio despite the Zika virus, as long as British Athletics declares it safe, adds.

So how important was Portland to that feel good factor? “It was really exciting,” Grabarz says of the event where he came second to the Italian Gianmarco Tamberi. “It was a massive reward for the last 18 months of hard graft and confirmed that we are doing the right thing and that it is going well and that I can still perform in a Championships. They are all little confidence-boosters to take forward.”

Grabarz sees Tamberi, who had an excellent, if unexpected, indoor season leading into Portland, as his main rival in the months ahead. “He jumped over 2.30 in every competition so his form was excellent going into Portland,” Grabarz says. “He is definitely [my main challenger]. To win that competition in Portland shows he’s a tough contender.”

And an unusual contender too. The Italian competes with half a beard. Is that not annoyingly eccentric for his rivals? Not according to Grabarz. “He’s a really great guy and he’s good fun,” the Brit says. “He loves being centre of the stage and anything he can do to make his performance more theatrical he will do: the half beard, the long hair, he plays up to the crowd. He doesn't do it to the detriment of anyone else. It’s his thing and it makes it fun for everyone involved.”

Those who shouldn't be involved though according to Grabarz are the Russians. He feels it is right that they have a blanket ban until the country can prove it is clean. “It’s the right decision,” he says. “It give more confidence to the public over the sport. I’ve got Russian athlete friends who won’t be competing. I feel sorry for those guys that are clean but they have to deal with it.”

Just like Grabarz had to deal with a painful four years where he dropped of the athletics radar due to a knee surgery in the aftermath of London. “I thought it’d be all right when I got back to jumping,” he says. “But I realised that it was going to be really tough if not impossible to get back to the place I was previously. My first go I couldn't jump 180 for any money in the world - there was no way I was going to clear it. That’s when you realise this is going to be a tough journey. It knocked my confidence so far back.”

It has been a long road for Grabarz but he is back and setting the summer bar high.

Grabarz joins the likes of Mo Farah, Dina Asher-Smith, Gianmarco Tamberi, Dafne Schippers and Adam Gemili in a star-studded field at the Birmingham Diamond League on Sunday, June 5. For tickets visit britishathletics.org.uk