Claudia Payton is one of Sweden's fastest women in the 60 and 100 meters and just over a week ago she was selected for the European Athletics Championships.

But the road there has been long.

Claudia was only 13 years old when a football match at home in Värmland in the autumn of 2011 changed everything.

She was on her way to the goal and was about to shoot when the goalkeeper rushed out and locked her right leg.

Claudia fell and the femur - the heaviest, longest and strongest bone in the human skeleton - was twisted.

- I did not feel so much because I had so much adrenaline in my body.

But then I looked back and just "my leg is like a z", says Claudia Payton to SVT Sport.

"This is urgent"

The ambulance staff first thought that the knee was out of joint and tried to turn it back.

At the hospital, however, a doctor found that the femur had been broken and the condition was critical.

- We met a doctor who just "this is acute, so the femur is off.

She has a very bad pulse.

We have to pull the right leg at once because otherwise there is a great risk of complications such as amputation ".

But the operation was successful and the bone could be saved.

It took ten days in hospital and three months in a wheelchair before she could start walking on crutches.

Then came the next blow.

Heavy setback

When Claudia was learning to walk on crutches, she noticed that her knee locked every time she bent it.

The doctors feared that she would have to sit in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, but the family did not give up.

They sought out a specialist doctor in Gothenburg who operated on the knee and then everything turned around - again.

- From being told that you will be in a wheelchair all your life to being told that you can be fully active after the operation, it was like day and night, she says.

From the femoral fracture in 2011, it took 3.5 years before Claudia could start playing sports again.

At the end of 2014, she did her first running competition.

Jumps 60 meters at the European Championships

Today she has four Swedish Championship medals at senior level.

The latest, a gold in 60 meters, came last weekend when she hit with a personal best of 7.30 in the final.

After the final, she was told by national team captain Karin Torneklint that she will run 60 meters at the European Championships in Poland 4-7 March.

- It feels really fun, really.

To only line up completely individually at a European Championships is something I dreamed of.

How do you think this trip you have made has been possible?

- That I even run today is a miracle.

And that I sprint at this level is completely against what the doctors thought.

But I usually do not give up and do not take a no, I struggle as well.

Here, on SVT Play, you can watch the entire report with Claudia Payton.

CLIP: Here are Claudia's three keys to her recovery from injury

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This is what Claudia Payton did to get back from injury Photo: Bildbyrån / SVT