Almost a year on from the heartache of finishing second in the Olympic Games, Phillips Idowu claims to have moved on from his disappointment in Beijing.

True, he has moved on some 200 miles further north from his London roots and is now living in Birmingham.

He has also gone through a serious illness that left him incapable of doing anything for two weeks and put his achievements into perspective.

Yet when pricked on the subject of China, you still get the feeling that Idowu, who keeps his silver medal in a sock drawer, continues to hurt.

"Since Beijing, I've really tried to grow as a person and I can't afford to have any personal turmoil," he said. "I feel that's happened and hopefully that can translate at the track.

"Beijing's in the past and I've moved on. This is a new year and it's all been about building for the world championships.

"I might not be unbeaten in the year like I was arriving at the Olympics but I'm a different athlete both physically and mentally. I genuinely feel I'm a better athlete and that there's a big jump around the corner."

Idowu finished behind Portugal's Nelson Evora despite being the red-hot favourite to win in Beijing last August.

The pressure will not be the same this weekend when the world championships get under way in Berlin.

The triple jump looks set to be one of the most hotly-contested events at the Olympiastadion when qualifying begins on Sunday with just six centimetres separating the five leading competitors this season, from Evora's leap of 17.66m to Idowu's best effort of 17.60m.

"I'm going to be on the limit in my event," added Idowu. "I have to jump like I'm never going to jump again to win gold."

Idowu was recently quoted as saying he was targeting an 18.40m jump this season which would shatter Jonathan Edwards' long-standing world record by 11cms but the 30-year-old revealed he has an even bigger ambition.

"I never said that," he insisted. "Sure, the world record's a target and always will be in my career.

"I know I'm capable of it but it's no good having the potential to jump in excess of 18 metres, I have to actually do it. But I wouldn't have said 18.40, especially when I feel like I'm good enough for 18.80!"

Evora, who Idowu describes as a "cool guy", will be the man to beat in the sandpit as the current Olympic and world champion, having also won gold in Osaka two years ago.

But Idowu's rival has done everything he can to ensure he is in the best possible shape to win his first world outdoor title.

He has moved out of London to Birmingham in a bid to work more closely with his Midlands-based coach Aston Moore.

He admitted he was "still trying to adjust" and still very much thinks of London as home. "I'm a Hackney boy at heart," he said. "But the move was the right thing for my career.

"I just have to think about Birmingham as my place of work and London as a place I can come back to at weekends."

His new training programme has not gone entirely to plan and he was forced to miss the European Indoors following a potential life-threatening illness.

"It was very odd and was some neuromuscular thing," he recalled.

"At first I felt pain in my knee and then very suddenly my body just shut down. I couldn't do anything for two weeks. I was in a daze for all that time and was just laid out in bed.

"I went to the doctor after it was all over and everything's sorted now but I was told it can be very serious. It threw my training for the early part of the season but I'm now on track."

Long since returned to full fitness, Idowu is determined to regain his status as world No1 in Germany, an accolade he hopes to hold on to until London 2012 when, injury permitting, he will get the chance to jump in front of his home crowd.

"I'd love to compete down the road from where I've spent my whole life," he said. "But the fact is that I can't entertain London 2012 just yet.

"I just have to live for the moment in my competition and that's it."