Blanka Vlašić

Infobox Athlete
playername = Blanka Vlašić

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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 in Split, Croatia) is a Croatian high jumper and current world champion. Her personal best jump of 2.07 m (also a national record) was set on August 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, behind Kajsa Bergqvist (52) and Stefka 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 in Gothenburg 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 Russian Pole Vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva and American sprinter Sanya 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 between Sanya Richards and Yelena Isinbayeva.

Vlašić's main results of this season, were:

* = World record attempt

2008

At the 2008 Summer Olympics, held in Beijing, Vlašić won the silver medal, beaten by the Belgian Tia 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 the ÅF 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 to Ariane Friedrich.

Achievements

Personal life

Vlašić was named after Casablanca, a city where her father competed at the 1983 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