Carolina Klüft jubliant after winning the Pentathlon gold in Madrid (© Getty Images)
Despite coming within 43 points of Irina Belova’s 13-year-old World record in the Pentathlon, Carolina Klüft was anything but disappointed.
“It all felt very good,” the 22-year-old said after adding the European Indoor title to her Olympic, World Indoor and World Outdoor titles. “I was really satisfied with my competition. I knew I was in good shape and wasn’t really surprised with the results.”
Klüft began her busy day by equaling her personal best in the 60 metre Hurdles in 8.19, before jumping an indoor best of 1.93 in the High Jump. Her three efforts at 1.96 were very close as well.
“Yeah, 1.96 felt very close. I had three really good attempts at that height. I felt like I could take it, but, you know, it’s good to have something to look forward to in the future.”
Record talk began spreading around the Madrid Sports Hall after her High Jump effort, although a modest 13.29 follow-up in the shot put made the task a daunting one.
“Oh yeah,” Klüft said breaking into laughter, “the Shot Put was bad. It was a bad event. But you can’t be good in every event. You have to have some bad events too. I could do better but this time the technique I had didn’t work. I was too fast in the circle and didn’t have time to do the technique right.”
After a 6.65 in the Long Jump left her needing a 2:10.40 in the 800, nearly five seconds faster than she had ever run before indoors. And she went for it, but fell short with a PB 2:13.47.
“Yeah, I really went for it,” she said, again smiling. “I didn’t make it this time, but I know I can run better. The first two laps were too slow.”
“The last 200 metres, which she covered in 33.25, said “wasn’t that bad. I’m not that tired right now. I wish I would be more tired. But I wasn’t,” she concluded, sharing a simple yet successful strategy she’s often applied in the past: “So I’m going to run better next time.”
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
