Carolina Klüft
Encyclopedia
Carolina Evelyn Klüft (born February 2, 1983) is a Swedish athlete competing in triple jump
, long jump
and formerly in heptathlon
and pentathlon
. She won the Olympic
heptathlon title in 2004. She is also a three-time World
and double European
heptathlon champion.
Klüft first rose to prominence by winning the heptathlon at the 2002 European Championships
and setting a new world junior record of 6,542 points. She then won the 2003 World Championships
becoming the third athlete ever to score over 7,000 points.
She is the European record
holder for heptathlon with a personal best of 7,032 points. This score ranks her second on the all-time heptathlon points score list, behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee
who set the world record of 7,291 points.
Klüft has been unbeaten in 22 heptathlon and pentathlon competitions since March 2002, winning nine consecutive gold medals in major championships.
She is the only athlete ever to win three world titles in heptathlon.
, Västergötland
, Klüft grew up in Växjö
, where her father, mother and three sisters still live. She currently lives in Karlskrona
together with her husband Patrik Klüft, who is a former pole vault
er. They were married in September 2007 at Crichton Parish Church in Midlothian
, Scotland
.
Klüft comes from a family with sporting traditions: her father Johnny played professional soccer in the Swedish Allsvenskan
and her mother was an international long jumper. She started out playing soccer herself but took up athletics at the age of twelve. She has described being subjected to bullying at school after moving to Växjö and subsequently using her athletic prowess to gain respect. Klüft took up the heptathlon in 2000 after coach Agne Bergvall
suggested she had a future in it. Bergvall has been her main coach ever since.
Klüft is 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) tall and weighs 65 kg (140 lb / 10.2 stone). Her physique is well-suited to multi-events: she is tall and lean for the running and jumping events but also powerful enough to perform well in the shot put and javelin. She has shown more natural ability in the jumping events, sprinting and hurdles, and has steadily improved in the throwing events and 800 m and has now been described as having no weaknesses across the seven events. This is demonstrated by her finishing in the top six in all disciplines of the 2007 World Championship heptathlon.
She is also a member of the Swedish 4 x 100 m relay team at international competitions, and was part of the team that set the national record.
She is particularly friendly with British rival Kelly Sotherton
, and the two can often be seen chatting during competitions. Klüft regularly leads the other heptathletes on a lap of honor after a major competition. She is often referred to by the nickname 'Carro' by people who know her.
When not training or competing, Klüft is a student at the Linnaeus University
, studying Peace and Development. She visited areas of Sri Lanka
hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
to make a film for Swedish TV and also sponsors children in Africa.
She is part of Reebok
's "I am what I am" advertising campaign along with several other sports stars. She has been the focus of poster photography for Reebok
, taken by celebrity photographer Jason Bell.
Klüft was nominated for four consecutive Laureus
World Sportswoman of the Year awards from 2005-2008.
She has a mascot, a small stuffed toy representing Eeyore
, that she takes everywhere. Klüft claims that this is not for luck, but to remind her of her philosophy that sport is for fun.
She is one of very few athletes to at some time hold all five available international titles: Olympic, World Outdoor, Regional (Europe in her case) Outdoor, World Indoor and Regional Indoor.
, at the age of 19, she set a world junior record
by scoring 6,470 points. She captured her first major championship title at the 2002 European Championships in Munich
with a score of 6,542 points, improving the world junior record in the process.
and Tallinn
.
She won her first major outdoor title, the heptathlon
at the 2003 World Championships in Paris with a score of 7,001 points, ahead of Eunice Barber
, who had 6,755 points. Klüft thus became the third woman ever to break the 7,000-point barrier in the heptathlon. She set six personal bests in the seven disciplines including a 1.94 m high jump
and a 200 m run of 22.98 s. At one stage she was on the brink of elimination from the competition after overstepping on the first two of her three long jump
attempts but ended up recording the best jump of the competition with 6.68 m. She was later awarded the Waterford Crystal European Athlete of the Year Trophy 2003. That same year, Klüft also received the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal
.
She won the heptathlon
gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens
with a score of 6,952 points. She took the lead after the high jump and extended her lead after every event from then on. With Eunice Barber
absent through injury, Klüft won by an Olympic record margin of 517 points, ahead of Austra Skujytė
. She also entered the long jump, qualifying for the final but finishing 11th.
set Klüft up for the defense of her heptathlon world title.
The day before the 2005 World Championships in Athletics
in Helsinki
, Klüft injured her foot. The injury affected her performance, particularly in the high jump
which was a clearance of only 1.82 m. Klüft fell well behind Eunice Barber
but made a comeback with a personal best shot put
of 15.02 m and then took the lead after the 200 m. She then stretched her lead with a long jump
effort of 6.87 m, and held on to an advantage of only 18 points after the javelin. She overtook Barber at the end of the 800 m to retain the title. Klüft totaled 6,887 points, finishing ahead of Barber who took the silver medal with 6,824 points.
.
She defended her title at the 2006 European Athletics Championships with a score of 6,740 points, despite having been hampered by injuries throughout her preparation. She performed well below her best but still won comfortably following the withdrawal of her rival Barber after the high jump. Klüft went on to compete in the individual long jump but finished 6th.
Her victory in the 2007 European Indoor Championships in Birmingham
was by a margin of only 17 points over home favorite Kelly Sotherton. Klüft again narrowly missed the world pentathlon record, with a score of 4944 points.
Still recovering from her fitness problems of the previous year, she did only one heptathlon before the World Championships, a fifth victory in Götzis.
At the World Championships in Osaka
, Klüft had the opportunity to become the only woman to win three world titles in the heptathlon. However, she faced strong competition from Lyudmila Blonska
of Ukraine
, who had, earlier in the year, set the world best heptathlon score of 2007.
Klüft started the first day by equaling her personal best of 13.15s in the 100 m Hurdles and a new personal best of 1.95 m in the high jump. Solid performances of 14.81 in the shot put and 23.38 in the 200 m followed, for Klüft to hold the lead from Blonska after day one, with 4162 points.
On the second day, Klüft recorded a long jump of 6.85 m, threw 47.98 m in the javelin and ran 2:12.56 in the 800 metres to claim her third World Championship gold. She posted a personal best points score of 7,032, putting her second on the all time list, and beating Larisa Turchinskaya
's 18-year old European record.
finished just 18 points behind Klüft, beating the Swede in both the hurdles and 400 m. On February 22, Klüft announced that she had ruptured her hamstring
and that, as a result, she would not compete at the World Indoor Championships
on March 7.
Klüft announced on March 19, 2008 that she will not contest any heptathlons in 2008, including defending her title at the Olympics
, stating that she was no longer motivated to train for and compete in heptathlons. Klüft has decided to concentrate upon long jump
and also train seriously for triple jump
. Although Klüft is inexperienced in triple jump, she has worked with Yannick Tregaro
(coach of Olympic champion Christian Olsson
), who predicted that she could jump over 14.50 m.
She entered both the long jump and triple jump at the 2008 Olympics. Her best effort of 13.90 m did not qualify her for the triple jump final. She ended ninth in the long jump with a result of 6.49 m.
Although Klüft did not defend her heptathlon title at the Beijing Olympics, she has stated that she may yet contest another heptathlon, after the 2008 season.
in Berlin
as well as the rest of the season after suffering a hamstring injury she picked up in July in Sweden. She had surgery in the middle of July, after which she needed around six months rehabilitation.
, reaching the final but ultimately finishing 11th out of the twelve athletes that reached the final. The Swede jumped 6.33 metres but was almost 60 centimetres behind gold medalist Ineta Radēviča
of Latvia
. Kluft says she "didn't have any power in my legs" and "my legs felt heavy today" after having qualified for the final. Kluft, a two-time European champion in the heptathlon, says reaching the final had satisfied her.
Triple jump
The triple jump is a track and field sport, similar to the long jump, but involving a “hop, bound and jump” routine, whereby the competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.The triple jump has its origins in the Ancient Olympics and has been a...
, long jump
Long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
and formerly in heptathlon
Heptathlon
A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta and athlon . A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.-Women's Heptathlon:...
and pentathlon
Women's pentathlon
The pentathlon is a sports contest made up of five events . The women's pentathlon was contested in the Olympics from 1964 until 1980, and it was replaced in the 1984 Games with the heptathlon. It had a different set of events than the ancient Olympic pentathlon...
. She won the Olympic
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
heptathlon title in 2004. She is also a three-time World
IAAF World Championships in Athletics
The World Championships in Athletics is an event organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations . Originally, it was organised every four years, but this changed in 1991, and it has since been organised biennially.-History:...
and double European
European Championships in Athletics
The European Athletics Championships is an event organized by the European Athletic Association. It is organised every four years, the same year as the Commonwealth Games and between the Summer Olympic Games cycle. After the 2010 Championships in Barcelona, the European Championships will take...
heptathlon champion.
Klüft first rose to prominence by winning the heptathlon at the 2002 European Championships
2002 European Championships in Athletics
The 18th European Athletics Championships were held from 6 August to 11 August 2002 in the Olympic Stadium of Munich, Germany.-Track:1994 |1998 |2002 |2006 |2010 |...
and setting a new world junior record of 6,542 points. She then won the 2003 World Championships
2003 World Championships in Athletics
The 9th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held from 23 August to 31 August 2003 in the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Track:...
becoming the third athlete ever to score over 7,000 points.
She is the European record
European records in athletics
European records in the sport of athletics are ratified by the European Athletic Association. Records are kept for all events contested at the Olympic Games and some others. Unofficial records for some other events are kept by track and field statisticians...
holder for heptathlon with a personal best of 7,032 points. This score ranks her second on the all-time heptathlon points score list, behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Jackie Joyner-Kersee
Jacqueline "Jackie" Joyner-Kersee is a retired American athlete, ranked among the all-time greatest athletes in the women's heptathlon as well as in the women's long jump. She won three gold, one silver, and two bronze Olympic medals, in those four different events...
who set the world record of 7,291 points.
Klüft has been unbeaten in 22 heptathlon and pentathlon competitions since March 2002, winning nine consecutive gold medals in major championships.
She is the only athlete ever to win three world titles in heptathlon.
Personal life and profile
Born in SandhultSandhult
Sandhult is a locality situated in Borås Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden. It had 599 inhabitants in 2005....
, Västergötland
Västergötland
', English exonym: West Gothland, is one of the 25 traditional non-administrative provinces of Sweden , situated in the southwest of Sweden. In older English literature one may also encounter the Latinized version Westrogothia....
, Klüft grew up in Växjö
Växjö
Växjö is a city and the seat of Växjö Municipality, Kronoberg County, Sweden with 64 200 inhabitants in 2010. It is the administrative, cultural and industrial centre of Kronoberg County. Furthermore it is the episcopal see of the Diocese of Växjö. It has a population of about 64 200, out of a...
, where her father, mother and three sisters still live. She currently lives in Karlskrona
Karlskrona
Karlskrona is a locality and the seat of Karlskrona Municipality, Blekinge County, Sweden with 35,212 inhabitants in 2010. It is also the capital of Blekinge County. Karlskrona is known as Sweden's only baroque city and is host to Sweden's only remaining naval base and the headquarters of the...
together with her husband Patrik Klüft, who is a former pole vault
Pole vault
Pole vaulting is a track and field event in which a person uses a long, flexible pole as an aid to leap over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the ancient Greeks, as well as the Cretans and Celts...
er. They were married in September 2007 at Crichton Parish Church in Midlothian
Midlothian
Midlothian is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It borders the Scottish Borders, East Lothian and the City of Edinburgh council areas....
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
Klüft comes from a family with sporting traditions: her father Johnny played professional soccer in the Swedish Allsvenskan
Allsvenskan
Allsvenskan is a Swedish professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the Swedish football league system, it is the country's primary football competition. Contested by 16 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with Superettan...
and her mother was an international long jumper. She started out playing soccer herself but took up athletics at the age of twelve. She has described being subjected to bullying at school after moving to Växjö and subsequently using her athletic prowess to gain respect. Klüft took up the heptathlon in 2000 after coach Agne Bergvall
Agne Bergvall
Agne Bergvall is a Swedish athletics coach.Bergvall is the head coach for heptathlon star Carolina Klüft...
suggested she had a future in it. Bergvall has been her main coach ever since.
Klüft is 1.78 m (5 ft 10 in) tall and weighs 65 kg (140 lb / 10.2 stone). Her physique is well-suited to multi-events: she is tall and lean for the running and jumping events but also powerful enough to perform well in the shot put and javelin. She has shown more natural ability in the jumping events, sprinting and hurdles, and has steadily improved in the throwing events and 800 m and has now been described as having no weaknesses across the seven events. This is demonstrated by her finishing in the top six in all disciplines of the 2007 World Championship heptathlon.
She is also a member of the Swedish 4 x 100 m relay team at international competitions, and was part of the team that set the national record.
She is particularly friendly with British rival Kelly Sotherton
Kelly Sotherton
Kelly Jade Sotherton is an English heptathlete and 400m sprinter. She was the bronze medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics and was fourth at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She also was a bronze at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, and was the heptathlon gold medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth...
, and the two can often be seen chatting during competitions. Klüft regularly leads the other heptathletes on a lap of honor after a major competition. She is often referred to by the nickname 'Carro' by people who know her.
When not training or competing, Klüft is a student at the Linnaeus University
Linnaeus University
Linnaeus University is a public university in the Småland region of Sweden. It has two campuses, one in Växjö and one in Kalmar. Linnaeus University was established in 2010 by a merger of former Växjö University and Kalmar University College , and has been named in honour of Carl Linnaeus.-...
, studying Peace and Development. She visited areas of Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake that occurred at 00:58:53 UTC on Sunday, December 26, 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. The quake itself is known by the scientific community as the Sumatra-Andaman earthquake...
to make a film for Swedish TV and also sponsors children in Africa.
She is part of Reebok
Reebok
Reebok International Limited, a subsidiary of the German sportswear company Adidas since 2005, is a producer of Athletic shoes, apparel, and accessories. The name comes from the Afrikaans spelling of rhebok, a type of African antelope or gazelle...
's "I am what I am" advertising campaign along with several other sports stars. She has been the focus of poster photography for Reebok
Reebok
Reebok International Limited, a subsidiary of the German sportswear company Adidas since 2005, is a producer of Athletic shoes, apparel, and accessories. The name comes from the Afrikaans spelling of rhebok, a type of African antelope or gazelle...
, taken by celebrity photographer Jason Bell.
Klüft was nominated for four consecutive Laureus
Laureus World Sports Awards
The Laureus World Sports Awards are awarded annually to sportspeople who have been outstanding during the previous year. The Laureus World Sports Awards were established in 1999 by Founding Patrons Daimler and Richemont and is supported by its Global Partners Mercedes-Benz, IWC Schaffhausen and...
World Sportswoman of the Year awards from 2005-2008.
She has a mascot, a small stuffed toy representing Eeyore
Eeyore
Eeyore is a character in the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne. He is generally characterized as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, anhedonic, old grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of the title character, Winnie-the-Pooh....
, that she takes everywhere. Klüft claims that this is not for luck, but to remind her of her philosophy that sport is for fun.
She is one of very few athletes to at some time hold all five available international titles: Olympic, World Outdoor, Regional (Europe in her case) Outdoor, World Indoor and Regional Indoor.
2002
Klüft was an exceptional junior athlete. During the 2002 World Junior Championships in Athletics2002 World Junior Championships in Athletics
The 2002 World Junior Championships in Athletics is the 2002 version of the World Junior Championships in Athletics. It was held in Kingston, Jamaica from July 16 to July 21, 2002.-Men:-Women:-Medals table:...
, at the age of 19, she set a world junior record
Junior world records in athletics
Junior world records in the sport of athletics are ratified by the International Association of Athletics Federations. Athletics records comprise the best performance of an athlete before the year of their 20th birthday...
by scoring 6,470 points. She captured her first major championship title at the 2002 European Championships in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
with a score of 6,542 points, improving the world junior record in the process.
2003
A score of 4933 points secured the pentathlon title at the 2003 World Indoor Championships. Klüft followed this with personal bests and victories in the heptathlons in GötzisGötzis
Götzis is a town in the western Austrian state of Vorarlberg, district Feldkirch.The town is well-known for its annual hypo-combined events meeting, the so called Hypo-Meeting, where some of the world's leading decathletes and heptathletes gather in the Mösle stadium...
and Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...
.
She won her first major outdoor title, the heptathlon
Heptathlon
A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta and athlon . A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.-Women's Heptathlon:...
at the 2003 World Championships in Paris with a score of 7,001 points, ahead of Eunice Barber
Eunice Barber
Eunice Barber is a Sierra Leonean athlete competing in heptathlon and long jump. Barber initially competed for Sierra Leone and then for France from 1999 onwards...
, who had 6,755 points. Klüft thus became the third woman ever to break the 7,000-point barrier in the heptathlon. She set six personal bests in the seven disciplines including a 1.94 m high jump
High jump
The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices in its modern most practiced format; auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years....
and a 200 m run of 22.98 s. At one stage she was on the brink of elimination from the competition after overstepping on the first two of her three long jump
Long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
attempts but ended up recording the best jump of the competition with 6.68 m. She was later awarded the Waterford Crystal European Athlete of the Year Trophy 2003. That same year, Klüft also received the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal
Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal
The Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal is an annual award "for the most significant Swedish sports achievement of the year". It has been awarded by a jury led by the Swedish morning paper Svenska Dagbladet since 1925. According to its statutes the Medal may be awarded in November or December to either...
.
2004
Klüft competed in the long jump at the 2004 World Indoor Championships, winning a bronze medal with a national record of 6.92 m. She warmed up for the 2004 Olympics by winning heptathlons in Götzis and Tallinn.She won the heptathlon
Heptathlon
A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta and athlon . A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.-Women's Heptathlon:...
gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
with a score of 6,952 points. She took the lead after the high jump and extended her lead after every event from then on. With Eunice Barber
Eunice Barber
Eunice Barber is a Sierra Leonean athlete competing in heptathlon and long jump. Barber initially competed for Sierra Leone and then for France from 1999 onwards...
absent through injury, Klüft won by an Olympic record margin of 517 points, ahead of Austra Skujytė
Austra Skujyte
Austra Skujytė is a Lithuanian athlete, competing in both the heptathlon and the decathlon. On 15 April 2005 in Columbia, Missouri, she broke the women's decathlon world record, with a score of 8366....
. She also entered the long jump, qualifying for the final but finishing 11th.
2005
She began 2005 by winning the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships with a new personal best of 4948 points. A third consecutive victory at Götzis and another in JyväskyläJyväskylä
Jyväskylä is the capital of Central Finland and the largest city on the Finnish Lakeland, north-east of Tampere and north of Helsinki, on northern coast of lake Päijänne. The city has been continuously one of the most rapidly growing cities in Finland since World War II. The city is surrounded...
set Klüft up for the defense of her heptathlon world title.
The day before the 2005 World Championships in Athletics
2005 World Championships in Athletics
The 10th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations , were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland , the site of the first IAAF World Championships in 1983. One theme of the 2005 championships was paralympic sports, some of...
in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, Klüft injured her foot. The injury affected her performance, particularly in the high jump
High jump
The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices in its modern most practiced format; auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years....
which was a clearance of only 1.82 m. Klüft fell well behind Eunice Barber
Eunice Barber
Eunice Barber is a Sierra Leonean athlete competing in heptathlon and long jump. Barber initially competed for Sierra Leone and then for France from 1999 onwards...
but made a comeback with a personal best shot put
Shot put
The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball—the shot—as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the putting action....
of 15.02 m and then took the lead after the 200 m. She then stretched her lead with a long jump
Long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
effort of 6.87 m, and held on to an advantage of only 18 points after the javelin. She overtook Barber at the end of the 800 m to retain the title. Klüft totaled 6,887 points, finishing ahead of Barber who took the silver medal with 6,824 points.
2006
Klüft chose not to compete at the 2006 World Indoor Championships in order to prepare for the European Championships, to be staged on home soil in Sweden. Klüft won again in Götzis and in ArlesArles
Arles is a city and commune in the south of France, in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, of which it is a subprefecture, in the former province of Provence....
.
She defended her title at the 2006 European Athletics Championships with a score of 6,740 points, despite having been hampered by injuries throughout her preparation. She performed well below her best but still won comfortably following the withdrawal of her rival Barber after the high jump. Klüft went on to compete in the individual long jump but finished 6th.
2007
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
was by a margin of only 17 points over home favorite Kelly Sotherton. Klüft again narrowly missed the world pentathlon record, with a score of 4944 points.
Still recovering from her fitness problems of the previous year, she did only one heptathlon before the World Championships, a fifth victory in Götzis.
At the World Championships in Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
, Klüft had the opportunity to become the only woman to win three world titles in the heptathlon. However, she faced strong competition from Lyudmila Blonska
Lyudmila Blonska
Lyudmyla Leonydivna Blonska , née Shevchuk is a Ukrainian heptathlete, long jumper and 2006 World Indoor champion pentathlete. She was given a lifetime ban from competition after failing a drug test at the 2008 Summer Olympics, her second doping offense.-Life and career:Blonska practiced rhythmic...
of Ukraine
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
, who had, earlier in the year, set the world best heptathlon score of 2007.
Klüft started the first day by equaling her personal best of 13.15s in the 100 m Hurdles and a new personal best of 1.95 m in the high jump. Solid performances of 14.81 in the shot put and 23.38 in the 200 m followed, for Klüft to hold the lead from Blonska after day one, with 4162 points.
On the second day, Klüft recorded a long jump of 6.85 m, threw 47.98 m in the javelin and ran 2:12.56 in the 800 metres to claim her third World Championship gold. She posted a personal best points score of 7,032, putting her second on the all time list, and beating Larisa Turchinskaya
Larisa Turchinskaya
Larisa Turchinskaya , née Nikitina , born 29 April 1965 in Kostroma, is a retired Russian heptathlete.Her personal best result is 7007 points, achieved on 10-11 June 1989 in Bryansk. This result remained the European record, until Carolina Klüft achieved 7032 points at the 2007 World Championships...
's 18-year old European record.
2008
She competed in an indoor triathlon (60 m hurdles, long jump and 400 m) in the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix. Klüft narrowly won the competition after setting an indoor personal best of 52.98 in the 400 m. Kelly SothertonKelly Sotherton
Kelly Jade Sotherton is an English heptathlete and 400m sprinter. She was the bronze medallist at the 2004 Summer Olympics and was fourth at the 2008 Summer Olympics. She also was a bronze at the 2007 World Championships in Athletics, and was the heptathlon gold medallist at the 2006 Commonwealth...
finished just 18 points behind Klüft, beating the Swede in both the hurdles and 400 m. On February 22, Klüft announced that she had ruptured her hamstring
Hamstring
In human anatomy, the hamstring refers to any one of the three posterior thigh muscles, or to the tendons that make up the borders of the space behind the knee. In modern anatomical contexts, however, they usually refer to the posterior thigh muscles, or the tendons of the semitendinosus, the...
and that, as a result, she would not compete at the World Indoor Championships
2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships
The 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics were held at the Luis Puig Palace in Valencia, Spain, March 7-9, 2008.-Bid:Valencia was announced the winning bidder by the IAAF on November 13, 2005 at an IAAF Council meeting in Moscow, Russia.-Men:...
on March 7.
Klüft announced on March 19, 2008 that she will not contest any heptathlons in 2008, including defending her title at the Olympics
2008 Summer Olympics
The 2008 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXIX Olympiad, was a major international multi-sport event that took place in Beijing, China, from August 8 to August 24, 2008. A total of 11,028 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees competed in 28 sports and 302 events...
, stating that she was no longer motivated to train for and compete in heptathlons. Klüft has decided to concentrate upon long jump
Long jump
The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point...
and also train seriously for triple jump
Triple jump
The triple jump is a track and field sport, similar to the long jump, but involving a “hop, bound and jump” routine, whereby the competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.The triple jump has its origins in the Ancient Olympics and has been a...
. Although Klüft is inexperienced in triple jump, she has worked with Yannick Tregaro
Yannick Tregaro
Yannick Tregaro is a Swedish athletics coach.- Early career :Tregaro was a prospective high jumper, who made the final of the high jump at the World Junior Championships. His coach was Viljo Nousiainen. Nousiainen died in 1999. This left Tregaro and the young triple jumper Christian Olsson without...
(coach of Olympic champion Christian Olsson
Christian Olsson
Christian Olsson is a Swedish athlete competing in high jump and triple jump. He has won an Olympic gold medal, three gold and one silver medal in the World Championships and two gold medals in the European Championships...
), who predicted that she could jump over 14.50 m.
She entered both the long jump and triple jump at the 2008 Olympics. Her best effort of 13.90 m did not qualify her for the triple jump final. She ended ninth in the long jump with a result of 6.49 m.
Although Klüft did not defend her heptathlon title at the Beijing Olympics, she has stated that she may yet contest another heptathlon, after the 2008 season.
2009
Klüft missed the 2009 World Championships2009 World Championships
2009 World Championships may refer to:* Alpine skiing: Alpine World Ski Championships 2009* Aquatics: 2009 World Aquatics Championships* Athletics: 2009 World Championships in Athletics**Cross-country running: 2009 IAAF World Cross Country Championships...
in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
as well as the rest of the season after suffering a hamstring injury she picked up in July in Sweden. She had surgery in the middle of July, after which she needed around six months rehabilitation.
2010
Klüft competed in the 2010 European Championships in BarcelonaBarcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, reaching the final but ultimately finishing 11th out of the twelve athletes that reached the final. The Swede jumped 6.33 metres but was almost 60 centimetres behind gold medalist Ineta Radēviča
Ineta Radevica
Ineta Radēviča is a Latvian athlete, competing in the long jump and triple jump.Radēviča won the bronze medal in the 2003 European U-23 championship. She has also won two NCAA championships, while competing for the University of Nebraska. In the 2004 Summer Olympics, she was 13th in the triple...
of Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
. Kluft says she "didn't have any power in my legs" and "my legs felt heavy today" after having qualified for the final. Kluft, a two-time European champion in the heptathlon, says reaching the final had satisfied her.
Full Timeline of Multi-event Championship Performances
- 2000 Junior World Champion Heptathlon
- 2001 Junior European Champion Heptathlon
- 2002 European Indoor Bronze Medalist Pentathlon (last event she's lost to date)
- 2002 Junior World Champion Heptathlon (defending), World Junior Record
- 2002 European Champion Heptathlon, current World Junior Record
- 2003 World Indoor Champion Pentathlon
- 2003 World Champion Heptathlon, 3rd female past 7,000 points
- 2004 Olympic Champion Heptathlon
- 2005 European Indoor Champion Pentathlon
- 2005 World Champion Heptathlon (defending)
- 2006 European Champion Heptathlon (defending), championship record
- 2007 European Indoor Champion Pentathlon (defending)
- 2007 World Champion Heptathlon (defending), European record
Heptathlon
- Olympic GamesOlympic GamesThe Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
- 20042004 Summer OlympicsThe 2004 Summer Olympic Games, officially known as the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad, was a premier international multi-sport event held in Athens, Greece from August 13 to August 29, 2004 with the motto Welcome Home. 10,625 athletes competed, some 600 more than expected, accompanied by 5,501 team...
- 6,952 p - Gold
- 2004
- World Championships
- 20032003 World Championships in AthleticsThe 9th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations, were held from 23 August to 31 August 2003 in the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Seine-Saint-Denis, France.-Track:...
- 7,001 p - Gold - 20052005 World Championships in AthleticsThe 10th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations , were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland , the site of the first IAAF World Championships in 1983. One theme of the 2005 championships was paralympic sports, some of...
- 6,887 p - Gold - 20072007 World Championships in AthleticsThe 11th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations , were held at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan from 24 August to 2 September 2007...
- 7,032 p - Gold
- 2003
- European Championships
- 2002 - 6,542 p - Gold
- 2006 - 6,740 p - Gold
- World Junior Championships
- 2000 - 6,056 p - Gold
- 2002 - 6,470 p - Gold
- European Junior ChampionshipsEuropean Athletics Junior ChampionshipsThe European Athletics Junior Championships are the European championships open for those of age. The IAAF defines Junior as athletes who are 19 years of age or under. It is currently organized by the European Athletic Association....
- 20012001 European Athletics Junior ChampionshipsThe 2001 European Athletics Junior Championships was an athletics competition for athletes under-20 which was held at the Stadio Olimpico Carlo Zecchini in Grosseto, Italy from 19 – 22 July 2001. A total of 44 events were contested, 22 by male and 22 by female athletes...
- 6,022 p - Gold
- 2001
Long jump
- World Indoor Championships
- 2004 - 6.92 m - Bronze
- European U23 ChampionshipsEuropean Athletics U23 ChampionshipsThe European Athletics U23 Championships is a biennial athletics competition for European athletes under the age of 23, which is organized by the European Athletic Association...
- 20032003 European Athletics U23 ChampionshipsThe 2003 European Athletics U23 Championships was held in Bydgoszcz, Poland at the Zdzisław Krzyszkowiak Stadium between 17–20 July 2003.- Men's :-Women's:-Medals table:-References:* . GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2009-08-05.*...
- 6.86 m - Gold - 20052005 European Athletics U23 ChampionshipsThe 2005 European Athletics U23 Championships is the 2005 version of the European Athletics U23 Championships. It was held in Erfurt.-Men's Results:-Women's:-Medals table:-Notes and references:* *...
- 6.79 m - Gold
- 2003
Pentathlon
- World Indoor Championships
- 2003 - 4,933 p - Gold
- European Indoor Championships
- 2002 - 4,535 p - Bronze
- 20052005 European Indoor Athletics ChampionshipsThe 28th European Athletics Indoor Championships were held at the Palacio de Deportes in Madrid, the capital city of Spain, from Friday, 4 March to Sunday, 6 March 2005.-Men:...
- 4,948 p - Gold - 2007 - 4,944 p - Gold
International awards
- Waterford Crystal European Athlete of the Year Trophy 2003 and 2006
Personal bests
| Event | Indoor | Outdoor |
|---|---|---|
| 4 x 100 metres | 43.61 s (NR) | |
| 4 x 400 metres | 3:31.28 min | |
| 60 metres 60 metres 60 metres is a sprint event in track and field athletics. It is a championship event for indoor championships, normally dominated by the best outdoor 100 metres runners. At outdoor venues it is a rare distance, at least for senior athletes... |
7.40 s | |
| 60 metres hurdles 60 metres hurdles 60 metres hurdles is a distance in hurdling which is generally run in indoor competitions. It is equivalent with the first 60 metres including the first 5 hurdles of a standard outdoor hurdle race. The current women's and men's world records are 7.68 seconds and 7.30 seconds ,... |
8.19 s | |
| 100 metres 100 metres The 100 metres, or 100-metre dash, is a sprint race in track and field competitions. The shortest common outdoor running distance, it is one of the most popular and prestigious events in the sport of athletics. It has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896... |
11.48 s | |
| 100 metres hurdles 100 metres hurdles The 100 m hurdles are an Olympic track and field athletics discipline run by women . For the race ten hurdles of a height of 83.8 cm are placed evenly spaced along a straight course of 100 meters. They are positioned so that they will fall over if bumped into by the runner... |
13.15 s | |
| 200 metres 200 metres A 200 metres race is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 m track, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques are needed to successfully run the race. A slightly shorter race, called the stadion and run on a straight track, was the first... |
24.12 s | 22.98 s |
| 400 metres 400 metres The 400 metres, or 400 metre dash, is a common sprinting event in track and field competitions. It has been featured in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympics since 1896 . On a standard outdoor running track, it is exactly one lap around the track. Runners start in staggered positions and... |
52.98 s | 53.17 s |
| 800 metres 800 metres The 800 meter race is a common track running event. It is the shortest common middle distance track event. The 800 meter is run over two laps of the track and has always been an Olympic event. During indoor track season the event is usually run on a 200 meter track, therefore requiring four laps... |
2:13:04 min | 2:08.89 min |
| Heptathlon Heptathlon A heptathlon is a track and field athletics combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek hepta and athlon . A competitor in a heptathlon is referred to as a heptathlete.-Women's Heptathlon:... |
7,032 p (European record) | |
| High jump High jump The high jump is a track and field athletics event in which competitors must jump over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without the aid of certain devices in its modern most practiced format; auxiliary weights and mounds have been used for assistance; rules have changed over the years.... |
1.93 m | 1.95 m |
| Javelin throw Javelin throw The javelin throw is a track and field athletics throwing event where the object to be thrown is the javelin, a spear approximately 2.5 metres in length. Javelin is an event of both the men's decathlon and the women's heptathlon... |
50.96 m | |
| Long jump Long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength, and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a take off point... |
6.92 m (NR) | 6.97 m |
| Pentathlon Women's pentathlon The pentathlon is a sports contest made up of five events . The women's pentathlon was contested in the Olympics from 1964 until 1980, and it was replaced in the 1984 Games with the heptathlon. It had a different set of events than the ancient Olympic pentathlon... |
4,948 p (NR) | |
| Shot put Shot put The shot put is a track and field event involving "putting" a heavy metal ball—the shot—as far as possible. It is common to use the term "shot put" to refer to both the shot itself and to the putting action.... |
14.48 m | 15.05 m |
| Triple jump Triple jump The triple jump is a track and field sport, similar to the long jump, but involving a “hop, bound and jump” routine, whereby the competitor runs down the track and performs a hop, a bound and then a jump into the sand pit.The triple jump has its origins in the Ancient Olympics and has been a... |
14.29 m (NR) |