The 26-year-old from Zrenjanin, winner of the European outdoor title last year before earning an Olympic bronze medal in a sensational final which saw three women clear seven metres, smiled twice as she gave her answers.  

They were the same: no.

"I do not feel any pressure at all," she told assembled media at Belgrade’s City Hall.

"My honour to be part of this great event in Serbia - it is going to be something no-one ever witnessed or felt before, and it is going to be the same thing for myself.

"The only times I would feel pressure would have been in those times when I had to compete when I wasn’t 100 per cent ready and people had greater expectations for me than I could fulfil.

"But I am happy and will do the best I can to jump over seven metres and hopefully that will enable me to retain my title."

Spanovic improved her 2017 world lead to 6.96 metres last Saturday (February 25) as the Championships venue of the Kombank Arena, a facility built for basketball ad hich has been reconfigured in the last six weeks to take in a new athletics track, was officially opened again for the Balkan Indoor Championships.

She is one of 12 home athletes chasing medals here.

Shot putter Asmir Kolasinac, seeking a third consecutive podium finish at these Championships after gold in 2013 in Gothenburg and silver in Prague two years ago, believes it is the best Serbian athletics team ever assembled.

It is disappointing - particularly for The Netherlands - that neither their world 200 metres and European 100m champion Dafne Schippers, nor their World Indoor 1500m champion Sifan Hassan, are taking part in the Serbian capital. 

But the event has attracted a highly respectable number of the world’s top athletes, including Olympic champions Ekaterini Stefanidi, the Greek pole vaulter, Belgium's 21-year-old heptathlon champion Nafissatou Thiam, who will complete in the pentathlon, and Spain's extraordinary high jumper Ruth Beitia, the 37-year-old First Parliamentary Secretary of Cantabria, who will be seeking a sixth European Indoor medal, and a second title.

Poland, who topped the medal table when Belgrade hosted the 1969 European Indoor Games - a year before the European Indoor Championship format began - look ready to repeat history in the Serbian capital after naming a formidable team.

Several members of the squad also featured at last summer’s European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam where Poland topped the table with six golds, five silvers and one bronze.

Adam Kszczot, seeking a third European indoor 800m title following his wins at Paris in 2011 and Gothenburg 2013, is one of three selected who currently top the European men’s indoor lists.

Apart from Kszczot, who ran 1min 46.17sec in Dusseldorf on February 1, there is high jumper Sylvester Bednarek, the 2009 world bronze medallist, who cleared 2.33m on February 8.

And there is also the European Athletics Male Athlete of the Month for January, Piotr Lisek, who broke his own pole vault record with 5.92m in Cottbus on January 25, before producing the even grander flourish of 6.00m in Potsdam on February 4.

It is only a pity that Lisek will not be able to match himself against Renaud Lavillenie, the French world record holder who would have been seeking a fifth consecutive title but for injury. 

Lisek has recently suffered his own ill luck after breaking the pole with which he set his record and sustaining injuries to his legs and arm. 

He is hoping to be able to perform up to a point but it is hard to see him approaching the heights he has reached this season.

But if he falters, he could well be backed up by Pawel Wojciechowski, the 2011 world champion, whose effort of 5.78m in Lodz on February 16 leaves him one place behind his compatriot in the 2017 list.

Marcin Lewandowski, winner of the 800m in Prague two years ago to become Poland's only champion at the last European Indoor Championships, goes this year in the 1500m, where he is currently third in the rankings.

There are also big Polish medal chances in the men's shot put, where 19-year-old Konrad Bukowiecki, the European and World Junior champion, has already produced a personal best of 21.15m this season to go third in the rankings.

Britain will also be likely to make a strong impact in the Championships, given that their team includes defending men's 60m champion Richard Kilty, who said today he was running into potentially personal-best form, and Andrew Pozzi, in the form of his life and top of the 2017 world rankings in the 60m hurdles.

Laura Muir, the 23-year-old Scot who broke Kelly Holmes' British 1500m record last year and has set European 3,000m and British 5,000m indoor records this season, will seek a 1,500/3,000m double that could confirm her status as one of the fastest-rising talents in world athletics.