Blanka Vlašić

Blanka Vlašić
at the Adidas Grand Prix in New York 2015
nation	Croatia
birthday	8th November 1983 (age 36)
place of birth	Split ,  Yugoslavia
size	193 cm
Weight	70 kg
Career
discipline	high jump
Best performance	2.08 m
society	ASK split
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 1 × 1 × World championships 2 × 2 × 0 × Indoor World Cup 2 × 1 × 1 × European championships 1 × 0 × 0 × Junior World Championship 2 × 0 × 0 × U23 European Championship 1 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games silver Beijing 2008 2.05 m bronze Rio de Janeiro 2016 1.97 m  World championships gold Osaka 2007 2.05 m gold Berlin 2009 2.04 m silver Daegu 2011 2.03 m silver Beijing 2015 2.01 m  Indoor world championships bronze Budapest 2004 1.97 m silver Moscow 2006 2.00 m gold Valencia 2008 2.03 m gold Doha 2010 2.00 m  European championships gold Barcelona 2010 2.03 m  Junior World Championships gold Santiago 2000 1.91 m gold Kingston 2002 1.96 m  U23 European Championships gold Bydgoszcz 2003 1.98 m
last change: September 14, 2018

Blanka Vlašić [ ˈblaːnka ˈʋlaʃitɕ ] (born November 8, 1983 in Split , SR Croatia , SFR Yugoslavia ) is a Croatian athlete . She became world champion in 2007 and 2009 and European high jump champion in 2010 .

Career

Blanka Vlašić grew up on the Croatian Adriatic coast in Split (then part of Yugoslavia ).
She is the daughter of Joško Vlašić , who has held the Croatian decathlon country record since 1984 . The daughter was named after the Moroccan city ​​of Casablanca , where her father took part in the Mediterranean Games in 1983 around her due date.

As a 16-year-old, she already managed to jump 1.93 m. Her personal best is 2.08 m, which she set up on August 31, 2009 (also the Croatian national record). So far only Stefka Kostadinowa jumped higher (2.09 m) at outdoor events . In the hall, Kajsa Bergqvist also managed 2.08 m. Vlašić is 1.93 m tall.

She is trained by her father and the former high jumper Bojan Marinović .

In 2007 and 2010 she was voted Europe's Athlete of the Year by the European Athletics Federation. In Germany she achieved greater popularity through her competition with the German athlete Ariane Friedrich , with whom she fought several exciting duels.

Vlašić was already quite successful in her junior years. She is a two-time junior world champion . At the age of 17 she won first in 2000 in Santiago de Chile with a height of 1.91 m and then two years later in Kingston with a jumped 1.96 m.

Olympic Games 2000 and 2004

In addition, at a young age she took part in the Olympic Games in Sydney in 2000 and in Athens in 2004 , each without reaching the final. At the European Championships in Gothenburg in 2006 , she was fourth with a height of 2.01 m. She holds the record of the highest jump in a championship that was not enough to win a medal.

In the 2007 season Vlasic jumped at twelve of the thirteen outdoor events over two meters and made several attempts, the world record of Stefka Kostadinova , who stands 2.09 m at to improve. Vlašić was particularly convincing this season with her consistency. At the World Championships in Osaka on September 2, 2007, she finally won gold with a jumped height of 2.05 m.

Blanka Vlašić in Osaka (Japan) after the award ceremony at the 2007 World Championships

Olympic Games 2008

After 34 wins in a row since June 2007, Vlašić was the favorite for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing . There she was defeated by the Belgian Tia Hellebaut , who had taken 2.05 m in the first attempt, while Vlašić needed two attempts and won the silver medal.

At the World Championships in Berlin on August 20, 2009, she won the gold medal with a jump over 2.04 m. A year later, Vlašić also won gold at the European Championships in Barcelona when she outbid her rivals with a jump of 2.03 m. She won silver at the 2011 World Championships. Due to the missing shape after an operation on the left Achilles tendon in 2012, she had to cancel her participation shortly before the start of the Olympic Games in London . She was also unable to take part in the 2013 World Championships due to an injury.

At the 2015 World Championships in Beijing , she won the silver medal. Like the other two medalists, she jumped 2.01 m.

Olympic Games 2016

At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro , she won the bronze medal with a jumped height of 1.97 m.

On July 19, 2017, Vlašić had to cancel her planned start at the World Championships in London due to foot pain. However, she announced that she wanted to start again at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo .

Personal

Blanka Vlašić was in a relationship with the French handball professional Nikola Karabatić . Her younger brother is the soccer player Nikola Vlašić (* 1997). She lives in her native Split.

Sporting successes

year	event	place	Result
2000	Junior World Championships	Santiago	1.
2001	World championships	Edmonton	6th
	Mediterranean Games	Tunis	1.
2002	Junior World Championships	Kingston	1.
	European championships	Munich	5.
2003	Indoor world championships	Birmingham	4th
	World championships	Paris	7th
	World Athletics Finals	Monaco	4th
2004	Indoor world championships	Budapest	3.
	Olympic games	Athens	11.
2006	Indoor world championships	Moscow	2.
	European championships	Gothenburg	4th
	World Athletics Finals	Stuttgart	6th
2007	European Indoor Championships	Birmingham	5.
	World championships	Osaka	1.
	World Athletics Finals	Stuttgart	1.
2008	Indoor world championships	Valencia	1.
	Olympic games	Beijing	2.
	World Athletics Finals	Stuttgart	1.
2009	World championships	Berlin	1.
	World Athletics Finals	Thessaloniki	1.
2010	Indoor world championships	Doha	1.
	European championships	Barcelona	1.
2011	World championships	Daegu	2.
2015	World championships	Beijing	2.
2016	Olympic games	Rio de Janeiro	3.

Awards

• Europe's Athlete of the Year 2007, 2010
• Europe's Sportswoman of the Year (UEPS) 2009, 2010
• World Athlete of the Year 2010
• "Track & Field Athlete of the Year" of the magazine Track & Field 2010
• Croatia's Sportswoman of the Year 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010

Web links

Commons : Blanka Vlašić  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Blanka Vlasic in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Blanka Vlašić in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Origin of the name
2. ↑ The IAAF's all-time best list
3. ↑ IAAF athlete portrait
4. ↑ Appreciation on the EAA website ( memento of July 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
5. ↑ Christian Fuchs: Jessica Ennis is Europe's Athlete of the Year , www.leichtathletik.de October 4, 2012
6. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung of August 20, 2009
7. ↑ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of August 20, 2009
8. ↑ Friedrich rival: Croatia's high jump star Vlasic cancels the Olympics at welt.de , accessed on August 8, 2012.
9. ↑ After seven months: high jumper Vlasic makes her comeback
10. ↑ High Jump: Ruth Beitia wins at Sport1.de, accessed on 21 August 2016
11. ^ Portrait of Blanka Vlašić at spox.com, accessed on January 6, 2012