Blanka Vlašić
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| Medal record | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Blanka Vlašić |
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Competitor for  Croatia |
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| Women's athletics | |||
| World Championships | |||
| Gold | 2007 Osaka | High jump | |
| World Indoor Championships | |||
| Gold | 2008 Valencia | High jump | |
| Silver | 2006 Moscow | High jump | |
| Bronze | 2004 Budapest | High jump | |
Blanka Vlašić (born November 8, 1983 in Split) is a Croatian high jumper and current world champion. Her personal best jump at 2.07 m is also the national record and was set on August 07, 2007. Only two women (one indoor and one outdoor) have jumped higher than this.
Blanka was named after Casablanca, a city where her father competed at the 1983 Mediterranean Games around the time of her birth. [1] She became a world champion in 2007 World Championships in Athletics with a jump of 2.05 m. She previously won the high jump bronze medal at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships, and before that she was a double world junior champion.
She competed at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics without much success, although she was aged just sixteen and twenty at the respective times.
She finished 4th in the high jump final at the 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg earning the distinction of becoming the first athlete not to win a medal with a jump higher than 2 m (she cleared 2.01 m, but she needed more attempts than Bronze Medalist, Kajsa Bergqvist).
Blanka Vlašić is coached by her father Joško, a former decathlete, whose personal best, set in 1984, still stands as the Croatian national record; the two are a rare example of father and daughter simultaneously holding athletics national records.
As of 2007, Vlašić is the world's top-ranked high jumper, as well as being first in the overall rankings.[2][3]
Contents |
[edit] 2007
During the 2007 season, Vlašić jumped over two metres in seventeen of her nineteen outdoor competitions, along with several close attempts at a would-be world record of 2.10 m.
Vlašić also won eighteen out of nineteen outdoor competitions, with her only loss coming early in the season at the first Golden League meeting. As the women's high jump was a jackpot event this year, had Vlašić won here, she would have won (along with Russian Pole Vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and American sprinter Sanya Richards) a share of the Golden League jackpot ($1,000,000).
Her consistency over two metres, and consistency at the first attempt, this season, put her as a firm favourite to challenge for honours at August's World Championships and she proved the expectations had been right.
In early October, Vlašić was named female European Athlete of the Year by the European Athletic Association after the combined votes of a panel of experts, a group of journalists and the public. [4] She is the first Croatian athlete and the first high jumper to win this award.
Her main results of this season, were:
| In/Outdoors | Date | Place | Competition | Height | Position |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indoors | 21-01-2007 | Hustopece, Czech Republic | Moravia Daylong High Jump Tour | 1.96 m | 1st |
| Indoors | 28-01-2007 | Brussels, Belgium | Golden High Jump Gala | 1.98 m | 2nd |
| Indoors | 01-02-2007 | Gothenburg, Sweden | EuroJump | 2.00 m | 1st |
| Indoors | 04-02-2007 | Arnstadt, Germany | Arnstadt High Jump Meeting | 1.95 m | 3rd |
| Indoors | 09-02-2007 | Bucharest, Romania | Monica Iagar Grand Prix International | 2.01 m | 1st |
| Indoors | 13-02-2007 | Banská Bystrica, Slovakia | Europa Shopping Center High Jump Competition | 1.97 m | 4th |
| Indoors | 20-02-2007 | Stockholm, Sweden | GE Galan | 1.95 m | 2nd |
| Indoors | 24-02-2007 | Split, Croatia | Split Athletics Meeting | 2.00 m | 2nd |
| Indoors | 03-03-2007 | Birmingham, England | European Indoor Championships | 1.92 m | 5th |
| Outdoors | 11-05-2007 | Doha, Qatar | Qatar IAAF World Super Tour 2007 | 2.04 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 20-05-2007 | Split, Croatia | - | 2.00 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 10-06-2007 | Bydgoszcz, Poland | European Athletics Festival | 2.00 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 15-06-2007 | Oslo, Norway | Bislett Games (Golden League) | 1.98 m | 2nd |
| Outdoors | 30-06-2007 | Moscow, Russia | Moscow Luzhniki Cup | 2.00 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 04-07-2007 | Zagreb, Croatia | Hanžeković Memorial | 1.90 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 06-07-2007 | Paris, France | Meeting Gaz de France (Golden League) | 2.02 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 13-07-2007 | Rome, Italy | Golden Gala (Golden League) | 2.02 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 22-07-2007 | Madrid, Spain | Meeting de Atletismo Madrid | 2.05 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 25-07-2007 | Monaco | Herculis | 2.03 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 30-07-2007 | Thessaloniki, Greece | Olympic Meeting | 2.06 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 07-08-2007 | Stockholm, Sweden | DN Galan - IAAF Super Grand Prix | 2.07 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 02-09-2007 | Osaka, Japan | IAAF World Championships | 2.05 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 07-09-2007 | Zürich, Switzerland | Weltklasse Zürich(Golden League) | 2.04 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 14-09-2007 | Brussels, Belgium | Memorial Van Damme(Golden League) | 2.03 m* | 1st |
| Outdoors | 16-09-2007 | Berlin, Germany | ISTAF(Golden League) | 2.00 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 22-09-2007 | Stuttgart, Germany | World Athletics Final | 2.00 m | 1st |
| Outdoors | 28-09-2007 | Shanghai, China | Golden Grand Prix - IAAF Super Grand Prix | 2.02 m | 1st |
* = World record attempt
[edit] Achievements
| Year | Tournament | Venue | Result | Extra |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | World Junior Championships | Kingston, Jamaica | 1st | |
| 2001 | World Championships | Edmonton, Canada | 6th | |
| Mediterranean Games | Tunis, Tunisia | 1st | ||
| 2002 | World Junior Championships | Santiago, Chile | 1st | |
| European Championships | Munich, Germany | 5th | ||
| 2003 | World Indoor Championships | Birmingham, England | 4th | |
| World Championships | Paris, France | 7th | ||
| World Athletics Final | Monte Carlo, Monaco | 4th | ||
| 2004 | World Indoor Championships | Budapest, Hungary | 3rd | |
| Olympic Games | Athens, Greece | 11th | ||
| 2006 | World Indoor Championships | Moscow, Russia | 2nd | |
| European Championships | Gothenburg, Sweden | 4th | ||
| World Athletics Final | Stuttgart, Germany | 6th | ||
| 2007 | European Indoor Championships | Birmingham, UK | 5th | |
| World Championships | Osaka, Japan | 1st | ||
| World Athletics Final | Stuttgart, Germany | 1st | ||
| 2008 | World Indoor Championships | Valencia, Spain | 1st |
Blanka is six feet and four inches (193 cm or 1.93 m) tall, taller than most male high jumpers. She was featured as the celebrity counterpart in a 'celebrity trades places with ordinary joe'-type show named "Mjenjačnica" (The Exchange), where the 'ordinary joe' was a black man, a rare example of a black shepherd in a rural part of Croatia, Dalmatinska Zagora.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- IAAF profile for Blanka Vlašić
- Blanka Vlasic Pictures
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
Preceded by Carolina Klüft |
Women's European Athlete of the Year 2007 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
| Sporting positions | ||
| Preceded by Kajsa Bergqvist |
Women's High Jump Best Year Performance 2007 |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
