Portugal's Naide Gomes won the silver medal in women's Long Jump at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Doha on Sunday.

After two years of injuries and disappointments, Portuguese long jumper Naide Gomes got back on the medal podium at a major global championship with her silver medal at the World Indoor Championships in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.

"It was great. I wanted the gold, I was the defending champion, but also much appreciate the silver medal. It was an exciting finish and I thought that 6.67m was not going to be enough for a medal," commented Gomes, who had won the 2008 World Indoor Long Jump title.

Gomes cleared 6.67m with her best jump but just lost out to the United States' Brittney Reese, who went out to 6.70m.

However, she had her fourth round jump, measured at 6.74m which would have got her the gold medal, controversially annulled by the judges for apparently putting her toe beyond the take off board although there was no visible mark in the plasticine.

"However, I've forgotten about that already. It's straight back to work for me. I will not take a vacation as I've had long stoppages with injuries. I will continue to work hard and try to improve in practice to beat my personal record, and think I can," said Gomes, who set a national outdoor record of 7.12m in July 2008, a distance that no jumper in the world has beaten since.

"I have two fixed dates in my diary. At the end of May I will represent my club Sporting Lisbon in the European Champion Clubs Cup, which will be on home soil (in Vila Real de San Antonio in the south of Portugal) then there is the European Team Championships in June."

Portugal are in the First League this year, which will be held in the Hungarian capital Budapest on June 19-20, but Gomes, who has always been a loyal servant of the Portuguese international team, wants to help her country return to the top flight.

"The European Team Championships will be an important test for me ahead of the European Athletics Championships this summer. Barcelona is my big goal this season but please don't now call me the favourite," she joked.

"That wouldn't be right, as there will be plenty of women fighting for medals. I'm determined to be part of that fight but I don't see myself as a favourite."

Gomes took the Long Jump silver medal, behind Russia's Lyudmila Kolchanova at the last European Athletics Championships in 2006 and is looking to go one better this time around.

She also won the Long Jump at the 2005 and 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships.

"Going to Doha was a gamble, considering her fitness and her short preparation time," added her coach Abreu Matos.

"I took the initiative and introduced her to a number of factors which justified her presence in this competition and she accepted what I had to say, but it wasn't me making the decision. We do things by consultation.

"But Naide is a fighter, she is extraordinary and I'm very proud of her," he commented.