Carolina Klüft en route to her fifth straight victory at Götzis (© Lorenzo Sampaolo)
19 June 2007Karlskrona, SwedenWhen the Swedish "Folksam Grand Prix" series on Monday night opened its 2007 edition with "Telenorgalan" in Karlskrona (in the southeasternmost corner of the nation), the pre-meet talk mainly concerned the prestigious High Jump duel between "the old master" Stefan Holm and "the young challenger" Linus Thörnblad.
Holm wins ‘disappointing’ outing
Their last two encounters - during the winter - ended with both clearing 2.38 at the Swedish indoor championships and with gold and silver at the European indoor championships, so the expectations were quite elevated. However, it quite soon became apparent that Thörnblad hadn't yet managed to compensate for all the training lost due to spending most of April battling a persistent infection.
Already at 2.20 he had his first failure of the day and at 2.25 he wasn't really close to success in any of his three attempts. Instead it was Nicola Ciotti who became Holm's main opponent this sunny but in the end somewhat chilly Scandinavian evening. The Italian made 2.25 on his third attempt and was reasonably close also at 2.28.
But even though Holm won quite handily he was everything but happy with his jumping. He needed all three attempts at 2.28 and at 2.30 the bar refused to stay on despite Holm having the necessary height in his attempts. The timing was obviously somewhat off and his comment afterwards summarised his feelings quite well.
“I certainly hope that this will be my worst meet this summer,” said the 31-year-old reigning Olympic champion. “Not making 2.30 in these good weather conditions was really disappointing.”
After problems in Shot Put, Klüft leaps 6.71
But if the High Jump duel failed to live up to the expectations two local heroes made up for that in front of the enthusiastic crowd of some 3,000: Olympic, world and European Heptathlon champion Carolina Klüft and Magnus Arvidsson.
Klüft hails from Växjö some 100 km to the northwest but has been residing in Karlskrona for several years now and does much of her training at the "Västra Mark" arena. Javelin thrower Arvidsson has moved in the opposite direction. He is originally from Karlskrona but moved a couple of years ago to Växjö.
This evening Klüft had chosen to contest the Shot Put and the Long Jump and it almost started with a major flop. After having the first put slipping off her fingers Klüft had four more failures on decent puts where she just couldn't stay in the ring. But her extraordinary ability to perform under pressure triumphed once more and she ended with a reasonable 14.10 on her sixth and last attempt.
These problems in the Shot Put seemed to give Klüft some extra focus and energy for the Long Jump: After a narrow foul in the first round she hit the board well on her second attempt and despite a slight head-wind she recorded her longest mark since 2005: 6.71!
“This year I am healthy again and I can run well again which makes for longer jumps,” said Klüft, who hasn’t lost a Heptathlon since 22 July 2001. “I definitely feel that I have even longer jumps coming up later this summer.”
Later in her series she also had jumps of 6.70 and 6.62 and she finally won by almost half a metre from the comebacking Russian Olga Rublyova.
Near-PB for Arvidsson
Arvidsson must have felt considerable pressure when he now returned to compete in his hometown after recently having risen to "world class" as proven by his 85.75 win in Osaka in early May and his 84.10 when facing all the top throwers at the Bislett Games just three days ago.
Perhaps that pressure was the reason his first two attempts despite much power put into the javelin landed at 79 meters after being thrown in a much too steep trajectory. But in the third round Arvidsson kept down the tip of implement at the release moment and was rewarded by an 84.98 throw. German Stefan Wenk in second place found himself outdistanced by over seven metres.
With three out of three meets at 84-85 metres so far this summer it is obvious that Arvidsson has raised his game to another level this year. This consistency has been his trademark during his whole career, last year he did 80-81 metres almost every meet (81.75 his best) and two years ago 76-77 metres was his norm. This is actually the fourth straight year when Magnus has improved by almost exactly four meters.
Elsewhere...
Other impressive winners this evening were Johan Wissman in the 200m (won in 20.72 by almost five metres from Daniel Caines and Eric Milazar), South African Chris Harmse in the the Hammer Throw (75.05, won by six and a half metres) and Australian Donna MacFarlane in the women's 1500m (won by six and-and-a-half seconds in 4:12.99).
And the Karlskrona crowd also appreciated the women's High Jump – where Helsinki bronze medallist Emma Green was strongly challenged by Beijing World Juniors fifth placer Ebba Jungmark (1.92 and very close at 1.95 for Green vs 1.90 and very close at 1.92 for Jungmark) – and the men's Pole Vault - where former junior talent Jesper Fritz after a couple of years of injury problems appeared on his way to fulfill the early expectations by being almost flawless up to and including 5.60.
A. Lennart Julin for the IAAF
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