ROSE HALL, St James — Jamaican diver Yona Knight-Wisdom is targeting July’s FINA Diving Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, as his first chance to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, even as he recovers from an operation to fix a badly injured knee.

The Pan Am Games silver medallist in the three-metre springboard is racing against time to get back in top condition and resume competition, after going under the knife late last year.

The 27-year-old Leeds, England, resident said he might have to adjust his list of dives when he returns to competition, depending on his rate of recovery. But he was optimistic he will be back better than ever.

“I am three months post-surgery at the moment,” he told the Jamaica Observer on Saturday at an event hosted by the Jamaica Olympic Association to honour Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committe (IOC), at the Montego Bay Convention Centre.

“I tore my rectus femoris tendon, which is attached to the main quad muscle, attached to the patella. The surgery essentially was to reattach it. I had to wear a brace for two months [due to] which I was limited to only 30 degrees of flection,” he explained.

“Ever since surgery, I took a few weeks to just relax and started working on some rehab as best as I could in the brace. Then [I] got rid of it and now [I’m] just working on rebuilding the muscle strength, rebuilding the flection and range of motion that I have got in my knee, and try[ing] to find the strength and confidence again,” he said.

Knight-Wisdom, who has competed at the very highest levels including the Olympic Games and Commonwealth Games, admitted he would need mental strength to get him through the next few months.

“Yes, [I will need] the confidence when I can start jumping again, being able to jump with confidence and not [be] worried that I am going to damage it, or when I am working on my strength building [to] not [be] worried that I am going to damage it, just trusting that I am making it better.”

He said he was still working out in his mind when he would get back on the diving board.

“In terms of when I get back to normal diving, it’s hard to say. It could be maybe a month until I am able to start jumping on the springboard again, it may be longer. It is going to be a case of taking it day by day, week by week, and seeing how the quad responds, how the muscle responds, how the knee responds and how it feels.”

The Diving World Championships will be his first chance to qualify for the Olympic Games, he said.

“That’s my target — to get back to a good level for that event— and then afterwards there will be a few other events, another couple of oppurtunities where I could qualify, but the first target is Japan.”

At 1.88m Knight-Wisdom is a giant in the sport, and this he said has made his journey a bit of a challenge.

“When I qualified for Rio [2016] that was a more simple list [of dives] to try and lean into my qualities, lean into my strengths which is my form, my entries, the aestetics of my diving.

“And as time has progressed I have got stronger, I have been able to increase my difficulties a little bit, adding some more difficult dives. That was a more challenging journey as I had to learn how to execute those dives as well, and with my size it is very difficult to do those dives well frequently and consistently so I have been working hard on that,” he explained.

“When I get back after the injury it will just depend on how it feels, based on whether I go for the easier dives or the more difficult ones. I might have to adjust a few of my dives compared to what I used last year at the Commonwealth Games [in Birmingham, England]. But I still trust and believe that I have the quality to be able to execute those dives well, even though I have not done them in competition for three years. I still think I can do them well enough to get where I need to be.”

He told the Observer he was partial to a certian dive, one he feels he can consistently execute at a high level.

“My first dive that I open with from the three-metre springboard, that is my favourite and that is why I open with it — a forward three-and-half somersaults in the pike position — a dive that has a degree of difficulty of 3.1. So, it is one of my easier dives but it’s a dive that I feel I can do with my eyes closed. No matter how I am feeling, I can do it well; I got a few of those dives on my list. When I do the harder ones well I also like them, but they are obviously more difficult to execute,” he said.