News23 Feb 2004


Wissman sprints 20.66 at Swedish Indoor Championships

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Johan Wissman sets a 20.66 national record at the Swedish Indoor Championships (© Hasse Sjögren)

Gothenbourg, SwedenAlthough the national indoor championships were not able to provide any ”true” competition for Stefan Holm in the High Jump or Christian Olsson in the Triple Jump it didn’t stop these IAAF World Ranking leaders from extending their already impressive streaks of not only victories but also excellent marks.

Holm wins with  2.31m

With thirteen other jumpers in the competition Holm had to wait for over an hour before he entered at 2.15. He passed 2.17 and 2.19, made 2.21 on first attempt, passed 2.23 and sealed the victory with a first time clearance of 2.25.

He then went for 2.31 – 1 cm above the arena record (for “Friidrottens Hus”) that since 1992 has belonged to Patrik Sjöberg – and after an initial failure Stefan claimed that record by clearing the bar with a jump that very well could have been sufficient also for 2.35. Of his three actual attempts at that height this afternoon the third one was very, very close.

After winning at 2.31, 2.34, 2.36, 2.37 and 2.34 – and attempting 2.40 in all but the second meet - in his previous competitions this winter a mark of 2.31 and failure at 2.35 perhaps made his “spoilt” Swedish fans feel slightly disappointed but how many jumpers in history could lay claim to six straight meets at 2.31 or better? Furthermore it was the 60th 2.30+ meet in his career!

An ill Olsson remains impressive

However, in the category of “impressive career statistics” Holm still has trouble matching the achievements in the Triple Jump by Christian Olsson. Despite not feeling 100% and being about 1½ meters ahead of his nearest competitor Olsson put together a series that included four more 17+ jumps: 17.14 – 17.16 – 17.25 – 17.14! Thereby with a best of 17.25m he recorded his 21st straight victory and his 22nd straight meet over 17.

Wissman – athlete of the meet

Although Holm and Olsson thus confirmed their status as World Leaders they still lost the “Athlete of the meet” honour to 200m-runner Johan Wissman who ran a new national record for the third time this winter. After 20.78 in Stuttgart and 20.76 in Ghent, the 21-year old blasted the one lap in 20.66 winning the race by 99 hundredths of a second!

20.66 would have brought the silver medal at the last two editions of the World Indoor Championships. Also worth noting, is that this 20.66 was done from lane 3 on a 4-lane track which indicates that an even better time should be in the cards at the World Indoors if he would get any of the for fast sprinting more conducive lanes 5 or 6 on the Budapest oval!

Kronberg and Kallur to offer strong Budapest challenge

In the World Indoors perspective hurdle winners Robert Kronberg and Susanna Kallur also provided performances that signaled they could feature in the finals in Budapest. One year ago they ran 7.74 and 8.06 respectively at the National Championships and then went on to finish 7th at the World Indoors in Birmingham two weeks later. Now this year they clocked 7.60 and 7.96 running completely unbothered by the opposition at the Nationals.

The 2003 World Indoor in Birmingham was a huge Swedish success with four gold medals: Stefan Holm, Christian Olsson, Kajsa Bergqvist and Carolina Klüft. Bergqvist didn’t compete this weekend (she has a very restricted schedule this winter due to the Achilles problems last year) while Klüft did the 60m and the Long Jump.

The 60m brought a new PB (7.46) while the Long Jump still wasn’t satisfactory for Klüft. For the third meet this winter she was stuck in the 6.40’s not being able to get the same successful transition from the run-up into an explosive “lift” in the take-off as last summer. But it seems that others are much more concerned about this than Klüft herself.

SELECTED RESULTS

MEN
60m: 1) Jaysuma Saidy GAM 6.77, 2) Robert Kronberg 6.77 (National champion!), … 8) Patrik Lövgren 9.83 (injured, 6.69 in semi).
200m: 1) Johan Wissman 20.66 NIR.
3000m: 1) Erik Sjöqvist 7.56.99.
60m Hurdles: 1) Robert Kronberg 7.60.
HJ: 1) Stefan Holm 2.31, 2) Thomas Bipella 2.21.
PV: 1) Oscar Janson 5.58, 2) Patrik Kristiansson 5.51, 3) Alhaji Jeng 5.51, 4) Jesper Fritz (b 85) 5.30.
TJ: 1) Christian Olsson 17.25.

WOMEN
60m: 1) Jenny Kallur 7.33.
200m: 1) Jenny Ljunggren 24.11.
400m: 1) Beatrice Dahlgren 53.37, 2) Ellinor Stuhrmann 53.60.
60m Hurdles: 1) Susanna Kallur 7.96, 2) Jenny Kallur 8.17.
HJ: 1) Emma Green 1.81
PV: 1) Vala Flosadottir ISL 4.18, 2) Hanna-Mia Persson 4.09 (National champion).
LJ: 1) Carolina Klüft 6.40.
TJ: 1) Camilla Johansson 13.95.
SP: 1) Helena Engman 16.03.

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