- Blanka Vlašić
Infobox Athlete
playername = Blanka Vlašić
imagesize = 220px
country = CRO
alias =
club =
datebirth = birth date and age|1983|11|8
placebirth = CRO
height = height|m=1.93
weight = convert|75|kg|lb|0
turnedpro =
retired =
pb = High jump (outdoor): 2.07 m
High jump (indoor): 2.05 m [ [http://www.iaaf.org/athletes/biographies/country=CRO/athcode=171037/index.html Blanca Vlasic's IAAF profile] ]
olympics = 2nd (Beijing , 2008)
worlds =
highestranking = 1st (Osaka , 2007)
coaching =
updated =Blanka Vlašić [IPA|ˈblanka ˈʋlaʃitɕ] (born
November 8 1983 inSplit ,Croatia ) is aCroatia nhigh jump er and current world champion. Her personal best jump of 2.07 m (also a national record) was set onAugust 7 2007 . Only two other women (one indoor and one outdoor) have jumped higher than this. She jumped over 2 metre in 49 competitions, which ranks her third, behindKajsa Bergqvist (52) andStefka Kostadinova (197). She is known for striking a pose after she clears a height; she first did this in the IAAF World Championships in Osaka 2007. She is six feet and four inches (1.93 m) tall, taller than most male high jumpers.As of|2007, Vlašić is the world's top-ranked high jumper, as well as being first in the overall rankings. [ [http://www.world-rankings.net/woverall.html World Rankings in Athletics ] ] [ [http://www.world-rankings.net/whj.html World Rankings in Athletics ] ]
From the beginning of her career she is coached by her father, Joško Vlašić and a former high jumper Bojan Marinović.
Career
Early years
Vlašić competed at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics without much success, although she was aged just sixteen and twenty at the respective times. She won the high jump bronze medal at the
2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships , and before that she was a double world junior champion.Vlašić finished 4th in the high jump final at the
2006 European Athletics Championships inGothenburg earning the distinction of becoming the first athlete not to win a medal with a jump higher than 2m (she cleared 2.01m, but she needed more attempts than Bronze Medalist,Kajsa Bergqvist ).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
Russia nPole Vault erYelena Isinbayeva and American sprinterSanya Richards ) a share of the Golden League jackpot ($1,000,000).Vlašić's 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. She became a world champion with a jump of 2.05 m.
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. [ [http://www.european-athletics.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5626&Itemid=2 23-year-old Blanka Vlasic (CRO) wins the Waterford Crystal European Female Athlete of the Year 2007] ] She is the first Croatian athlete and the first high jumper to win this award.Vlašić's only loss of the outdoor season came at the Golden League meeting in
Oslo . This cost her a share of the $1,000,000 jackpot, which was shared betweenSanya Richards andYelena Isinbayeva .Vlašić's main results of this season, were:
* = World record attempt2008
At the
2008 Summer Olympics , held inBeijing , Vlašić won the silver medal, beaten by the BelgianTia Hellebaut (both cleared 2.05m, but Vlašić needed one more attempt than Hellebaut). This ended her recent unbeaten streak of 34 competitions. Vlašić's season ended in despair, as she was again beaten on countback in the final leg of theÅF Golden League series, which ended her chances of winning the $1,000,000 jackpot. Having won the previous 5 Golden League events, she finsihed in 2nd place toAriane Friedrich .Achievements
Personal life
Vlašić was named after
Casablanca , a city where her father competed at the1983 Mediterranean Games around the time of her birth. [ [http://xtramsn.co.nz/sport/0,,12051-6327129,00.html Sport - Yahoo!Xtra Sport ] ]Trivia
Vlašić 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 .External links
* [http://www.spikesmag.com/athletes/Heroes/blankavlasic.aspx SPIKES Hero profile on www.spikesmag.com]
* [http://usuarios.lycos.es/sandrakba/blankavlasic.htm Blanka Vlasic Pictures]References
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