Swedish Indoor Champs: 1,98m Victory For Green

Story written by Eric

Sweden's Emma Green won her first national high jump title on Saturday in Malmö, jumping 1,98m for the sixth-best mark in the world this season.

Green improved her personal best indoors by two centimetres, and jumped one centimetre higher than her lifetime best of 1,97m set at the 2005 IAAF World Championships in Helsinki, where she took home the bronze medal.

Green spoke with Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet following her victory, stating that she had been stable at just about the 1,90m - and a bit higher, so her winning mark on Saturday was finally worth the wait.

"I've now taken a step toward higher heights," she said.

Green had a great third-attempt at 2,00m, and, with a few minor adjustments and another day such as this where she was beaming with confidence, Green may break through that dream barrier.

Green's competition had bowed out by the time Green entered the competition at 1,83m - a height Green cleared on her first attempt. She continued first-attempt clearances through to her season's best height of 1,95m.

Green's first attempt at her new personal best was marginally good, but she found the bar on her second and cleared her lifetime best. She then had the bar raised to 2,00m, where she missed on her three attempts - including running under the bar on the first.

"This is the second time I've jumped at this height. It definitely felt that it is there and possible that I can clear it. Two metres is a dream barrier that one wants to clear - a big goal. It is perhaps a mental block, but also an inspirational goal."

Croat Blanka Vlasic, who has 20-meet win-streak and has cleared 2,00m 27 times in her career, has the highest mark in the world this season at 2,04m.

Vlasic has jumped injured the past two meets, however, and her participation in next month's IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain, is not a clear certainty.

Green's exposure to the magical barrier puts behind her a tumultuous past two seasons in which the 23-year-old, who is trained by her live-in boyfriend Yannick Tregaro, went from an immediate star to an athlete who appeared to have lost her confidence against the best in the world.

Green placed a surprising third in the world outdoor championships three years ago, knocking Russia's Anna Chicherova, who'd won the European Indoor title earlier that spring, into fourth.

Green was spared the limelight when Kajsa Bergqvist, returning from a nasty achilles injury, not only won the competition at 2,02m, but made three attempts at bettering Bulgarian Stefka Kostadinova's world outdoor record of 2,09m in the process.

Green was thrust partly into the spotlight, but needed time to mature both on and off the field - something she readily admits has been able to accomplish over the past two seasons.

"I feel as though I have matured as a high jumper and as a person. I have been more secure with everything around me which has nothing to do with the athletics field. I can now handle situations much better without them taking energy."

Green hopes to save her energy as she heads to Valencia in two weeks' time.

"My goal is to jump as high as possible," she said.

"Then we'll need to see how far it goes. It will take heights in excess of two metres to take a medal - absolutely. But everyone who is there has a chance, and I feel as though I haven't gotten out what I have inside of myself."

"She has the physical capability to go higher than this," Tregaro stated to Göteborgs-Posten.

JOHAN WISSMAN SET BACK BY FEVER

Johan Wissman, who on Thursday ran to a superb 400m victory at the GE Galan in Globen here in Stockholm, was grounded at his home base on Saturday and forced to withdraw from the national championships final due to a high pulse and feverish conditions according to national athletics doctor Sverker Nilsson.

Wissman, who is a strong medal favourite in Valencia, was attempting to use this weekend's meet as a strong workout and make an appearance before his fans in Malmö - only an arm's length (65km/6,5 Swedish miles) of driving from his base in Helsingborg.

He ran the fastest time (48,10) of the three 400m semi-final winners, but began to feel symptoms of sickness when he finished the race and took a rest in an office away from the field.

Wissman was entered in both the 200m and 400m - two races which would have pressed his energy reserves without sickness this weekend, as he would have only had 40 minutes of rest between events.

No athlete has ever won the 200m/400m double at the Swedish Indoor Championships.

Wissman will instead rest and attempt to recover from a series of travel and competition meetings which have taxed his sleeping patterns among other things.

"We had thought that the Swedish Indoors would be a good training weekend," said Wissman's trainer, Kenth Olsson.

Wissman was the third of our major Swedish stars to suffer either injury or cold and be unable to compete this weekend.

Sanna Kallur, who set the world indoor-record in the 60m hurdles two weeks ago in Germany, elected to pull out of the championships due to feeling tired and a bit sore in her hamstrings, and Carolina Klüft, who has been battling a disc injury in her back, was knocked out of the rest of her indoor season when she suffered an injur during warm-ups at the GE Galan on Thursday.

ALHAJI JENG IMPRESSES IN VAULT

Pole vaulter Alhaji Jeng won his first competition of the season on Saturday by clearing 5,71m. Jesper Fritz finished second by clearing 5,55m.

Jeng nearly added to his own Swedish national record of 5,80m set two years ago in Donetsk - site of Yelena Isinbayeva's world record of 4,95m last week - by making a very good third attempt at 5,81m.

Though unsuccessful, the 26-year-old showed he has the capacity to clear the 5,80m barrier again, and is showing fine form as he attempts to capture gold in Valencia following the silver medal he won at the 2006 World Indoor Championships in Moscow.

Jeng was hampered by being forced to wait it out when some of his competitors entered the competition more than a metre beneath his opening height.

CHRISTIAN OLSSON RE-INJURED

Reigning Olympic champion Christian Olsson suffered another blow to his attempt at fully recovering from his injuries, discovering on 26-January that he had a hemorrhage in the scare left after an operation he had on his hamstring in October 2007.

"It is a smaller hemorrhage," he's quoted as stating in Aftonbladet.

"With rehabilitation and massage, it shouldn't be any problem. It was a little setback, but since I'm not competing indoors, I hope that the plans still work out. I'm counting on doing my first outdoor competition at the end of May or the beginning of June."

===============================================

Swedish Indoor Championships
Malmö, 2008-February-23
Full Results here

Select Results:

K Höjdhopp Final lördag

Plac	Namn	Född	Förening/Land	Resultat
1	Emma Green	84	Örgryte IS	1,98
2	Frida Brolin	85	Råby-Rekarne FI	1,83
3	Jenny Isgren	81	Spårvägens FK	1,83
4	Angelica Johansson	83	Örgryte IS	1,80
5	Victoria Dronsfield	91	IF Göta	1,77
5	Anna Alexson	87	Spårvägens FK	1,77
7	Sofia Kask	89	IFK Lund	1,74
8	Helena Redborg	83	Turebergs FK	1,74
9	Sandra Asplund	85	IFK Umeå	1,74
10	Ellinore Hallin	87	IFK Växjö	1,70
10	Emma Ekdahl	89	IFK Lund	1,70
12	Sandra Liljegren	91	Vittsjö GIK	1,65
13	Karin Rydh	85	Malmö AI	1,65

M Stavhopp Final lördag

Plac	Namn	Född	Förening/Land	Resultat
1	Alhaji Jeng	81	Örgryte IS	5,70
2	Jesper Fritz	85	Malmö AI	5,55
3	Gustaf Hultgren	83	Örgryte IS	5,23
4	Fredrik Skoglund	81	Spårvägens FK	5,07
5	Joakim Norman	84	Mölndals AIK	4,95
6	Pawel Szczyrba	81	KA 2 IF	4,95
7	Deniz Mahshid	80	Örgryte IS	4,83
8	Alexander Eriksson	79	Spårvägens FK	4,65
8	Rasmus Tjärndal	85	Ullevi FK	4,65
8	Marcus Lindh	76	KA 2 IF	4,65
11	Erik Thorstensson	89	Spårvägens FK	4,65
12	Sebastian Axell	91	IK Lerum FI	4,47
13	Rasmus Olofsson	84	Hässelby SK	4,47
14	Jonathan Eklund	88	Hammarby IF	4,47

Foto credit: Emil Malmborg

Susanna Kallur Nabs 18-Year-Old World Indoor 60m Hurdles Record

Story written by Eric

Sweden's Susanna Kallur had dashed around Europe flirting with record performances over the past two weeks, and had tasted history eight days ago when she came within three one-hundreds of a second from tying an aged record set in a very conspicuous time frame within the sport.

The faster she sprinted over hurdles from a standing start to a finish 60 metres down a synthetic track, the more unavoidable the question became.

Each obligatory post-race interview was a potential nirvana for journalists attempting to draw forth an answer to an obvious question Susanna didn't want to consider, and instead, Susanna would carry on calmly talking about mechanics of her race which needed adjusting...how her start needed improvement.

She appeared dazed, perhaps confused they thought. Perhaps she needed some time to collect herself, for surely she'd want to talk about how much she was demolishing her competitors and getting closer to knocking off a Russian-who-became-a-Swede from history's record books.

Susanna had time to collect herself during practice sessions following her short travels around England, Sweden and Germany where she'd gone through the same motions of packing down her equipment, flying to her destination, checking into her hotel, rising early to eat, relaxing before the storm she'd later create, packing everything back down and finally checking out of her hotel.

Meet after meet -- at Norwich Union, Samsung Galan and Sparkassan -- the pool of journalists waiting in the mixed zone for an interview with Kallur would grow exponentially.

"Sanna", as she is known here in Sweden, just couldn't get her hands around why she was in such high demand. It was only 60 metres of hurdling, she thought. She knew she was quite quick, but there was always an area to improve on. The "perfect" race, she thought, may possibly bring her closer to an 18-year-old world record, but it wasn't something she got caught up in.

The real deal, she'd state, was outdoors in the fresh air where grit, gumption, determination and power all wrapped up into controlled energy would be tested over a full flight of hurdles 100m from the starting line.

But this was indoors, she was running fast, and first things were first.

Though she'll tell you otherwise, Sanna Kallur is used to being in the spotlight. She was nearly awarded Sweden's sportsperson of the year award for the second consecutive year last month, losing out to footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic. She knows pressure and has a great resolve when it comes to warding off unwanted thoughts and wasting both time and energy wondering about things which had not yet happened.

The world record would come if it was so destined, she'd reason.

Sanna wanted to live in the "now", not the future. The scribes writing for their daily newspapers and weekly magasines didn't get the message, however, and the questions would get more direct and less comfortable for Sanna before and after each subsequent competition.

Susanna was sitting on a gold mine, and they knew it. She pretended as well as she could that she didn't notice how incredibly close she was to making her little country of 9 million proud by becoming the second athlete in three years to set a world indoor record. Kajsa Bergqvist, who retired last month, set the world indoor high jump record of 2,08 metres in Arnstadt, Germany on February 4, 2006.

There is something magical about Germany, and Sanna got a good taste of that when she stopped the timing device 7,72 seconds after it fired in Stuttgart.

There was no denying her place in history following that race, as she elevated her status and position in the sport to the second-highest place on the all-time list -- 0,03 seconds behind Russian Lyudmila Narozhilenko's 7,69 clocking in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 1990, and one hundredth of a second ahead of Narozhilenko's Swedish record time of 7,73 set when she became a Swede and had changed her name to Lyudmila Engquist.

Susanna Kallur, daughter of an NHL hockey star with four Stanley Cups to his name, was setting herself up to make history, even if she felt the time wasn't yet right to touch a record all the greats in the 18 years preceding her had been unable to tie or surpass. The outdoor record-holder couldn't touch the mark.

The American record-holder, who was known for her foot speed, couldn't, either.

Engquist's mark was becoming a permanent fixture in the books, but not one which her adopted country wanted to see remain as word of her post-career drugs-testing failure turned the love-love relationship with her into one which pushed her far from the country with thoughts of committing suicide for letting it down.

Then Sanna headed back to Germany earlier this week to withdraw against her recent deposit into her training bank, and make an effort to run fast on a good surface. World record thoughts were still outside of her realm of thinking, she'd state, and she was simply there in Karlsruhe to have fun and run her best.

This time when journalists -- still armed with cameras and notepads -- were to pop up to ask about her training, she'd grant one of them an opportunity to film her practice indoors on Wednesday in a break from Sanna's normal routine. Perhaps she sensed the inevitable was in the air, and she simply wanted to show the world that she was as average and normal as the next athlete.

Nevertheless, Susanna Kallur, twin sister to Jenny Kallur, lined up to race late this afternoon at the BW Bank Meeting in Karlsruhe in a heat to determine which athletes would compose the final field at the end of the meet.

She remained set in her blocks when the gun sounded, and eased into the final with the fastest time of the day, 7,78 seconds after the gun sounded.

Chatter had filled the stadium earlier in the day as talk about a world-record attempt had permeated throughout the media out to the public, with the journalists doing most of the talking as Sanna had left it up to them to make prognostications about speed, charts and climbs up all-time lists.

She did later admit that the record had begun itching between the ears, so-to-speak, but she'd not dwell on it; she didn't want to chase times and marks, as doing so had previously caused her to get nervous and the goals to remain elusive.

By the time the eight women-strong final would take place, at 16.42 Central European Time, nearly every resident in Sweden had their televisions tuned to Eurosport or had their radios turned on to a newscast either waiting to watch history unfold literally in the blink of an eye, or to be interrupted from milking cows and shoveling snow if only for a minute to let out a loud "yes!"

American Lolo Jones broke the 19-year-old meet record with a 7,87 run in the first heat. Sanna, blocking out the distractions and focussed on her own plan, erupted for a 7,78 in the following heat.

An entire stadium erupted in cheer when the gun sounded. Sanna Kallur had a decent reaction to the gun and started off quickly toward the first hurdle. She flew over all of the barriers between the start and the finish tape, and, with her lean at the finish, flew through a barrier which had stood since Sanna was but seven years old.

The clock stopped at 7,68 seconds -- a time 1/100th of a second faster than the previous world-record, and the first time Sanna had broken the 7,80-second barrier.

Sanna stared at the clock a moment, not knowing if the time would be adjusted up or down, as often occurs when the official time is given.

When the official time was announced, Sanna Kallur, who turns 27 in five days, realised she had broken the world record, and was immediately congratulated by Damu Cherry, an athlete who had been previously banned for two years for steroids abuse. Sanna didn't appear enthused to embrace the controversial hurdler, but shook her hand, nonetheless.

Then she took her laps of honour in front of a class of people who had assembled for the possibility that they again would witness history on German soil.

Jones placed second in 7,77 seconds, the 10th-fastest ever recorded. So loaded was the field that six of the seven finishers set new personal bests in the race.

That Sanna would catch and pass a ghost of the sport's past in her fourth meet of the season was not remotely in her thoughts before the race began, and her reaction to her time and place in history says it all.

"This is absolutely unbelievable," reports the IAAF. "I can’t put my feelings into words. In comparison with my race last week in Stuttgart, today was much better."

Engquist would later send her congratulations to Sanna through a message she sent to Sportbladet, the sports division at tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet. Sanna also spoke with Jenny Kallur and received an SMS congratulation from Christian Olsson, who has the world indoor triple jump record.

Said Engquist through tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet:

Sanna! An emornously big congratulations for a fantastic and well-deserved record. I wish now that you will be injury-free, for then you will win the Olympics.

Congratulations from my heart! Ludmila.

The 26-year-old had endured a winter's worth of grueling practices in her pursuit of bettering her starts, her technique and her overall strength.

Sanna's race was the third time this indoor season that she has set a new personal best at this race distance. She concedes that she is strong at this distance, but the 100m hurdles -- the official Olympic distance -- is where the American hurdlers seem to excel, a fact which doesn't necessarily put her in the driver's seat heading to Beijing in August.

"There are some Americans who have better 100 metres hurdles times than I do. You certainly must consider them ahead of me," she said.

The Olympic Games are still six months down the road, and Sanna Kallur has much remaining on her plate this indoor season, with a date in Birmingham planned for Saturday.

"I like Birmingham", Sanna told Aftonbladet reporters. "They have good coffee there."

Indeed they do. Perhaps that was Sanna's best effort at staving off further talks about records and medals.

The Swedish national championships are being held in two weeks in Malmö, and the IAAF World Indoor Championships will take place next month in Valencia. Sanna's world record run tonight, though a phenomenal time, was far from perfect, and she realises there are areas yet to improve.

Time will tell how much more she can improve this indoor season, though her trainer, Karin Torneklint, believes Sanna can run much, much faster both indoors and outdoors in 2008.

The journalists, who flocked to Arlanda Airport in Stockholm when Sanna landed on Monday, believe she can, too.

Sanna's hopes of escaping further question-and-answers sessions disappeared with her entry into the world record books, and it appears as though this has only been the calm before the great storm which occurs once every fourth year, namely the Olympic Games.

Kallur, who has had a winter of injury-free training with her twin sister, Jenny, holds a 12,49 second 100m hurdles best outdoors - a mark she also achieved with her successes in Germany last season in Berlin.

The Swedish national record is held by Engquist, who twice ran 12,47.

Kallur was injured for three months leading up to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, and did not make it past the semi-finals.

She also hopes to improve on her fourth-place finish from last season's IAAF World Outdoor Championships 100m hurdles final - a race she was winning until American Michelle Perry, the eventual winner, interfered with Kallur over the final hurdle and impeded Kallur's finishing drive.

Perry is skipping the 2008 indoor season in favour warm-weather training in Australia's summer season.

The Kallur twins are no strangers to handling success. Their father Anders Kallur, the four-time Stanley Cup winner with the New York Islanders, is their manager.

Jenny Kallur, who was born four minutes before Sanna, is skipping the 2008 indoor season.

International Indoor Meeting, Karlsruhe

Women's 60m Hurdle Results:

1 KALLUR, SUSANNA SWE WR 7,68 (reaction: 0,162)
2 JONES, Lolo USA PB 7.77 (0,155)
3 CHERRY, Damu USA PB 7,89 (0,166)
4 WELLS, Kellie USA =PB 8,00 (0,163)
5 BOBKOVA, Miriam SVK PB 8,04 (0,138)
6 TRYWIANSKA, Aurelia POL SB 8,08 (0,181)
7 VUKICEVIC, Christina NOR PB 8,10 (0,157)
- TEJEDA, Anay CUB DNF (0,164)

Five-fastest indoor 60m hurdle races all-time:

7,68, Susanna Kallur, SWE, Karlsruhe, 2008-02-10
7,69, L. Engquist, RUS, Chelyabinsk, 1990-02-04
7,73, Cornelila Oschkenat, EG, Wien, 1989-02-25
7,74, Jordonka Donkova, BUL, Sofia, 1987-02-14
7,74, Michelle Freeman, JAM, Madrid, 1998-02-03
7,74, Gail Devers, USA, Boston, 2003-03-01

Susanna Kallur's Yearly Bests

1998 8.33i		..........	1998	13,48
1999 8.44i		..........	1999	13,41
2000 8.10i		..........	2000	13,02
2002 8.00i		..........	2001	12,74
2003 7.90i		..........	2002	12,94
2004 7.88i		..........	2003	12,88
2005 7.80i		..........	2004	12,67
2006 7.86i		..........	2005	12,65
2007 7.84i		..........	2006	12,52
2008 7.68i		..........	2007	12,49

All-time list source: Peter Larsson

Olsson Looking Sharp Under Radar in 2007

Story written by EPelle

Christian Olsson has that look in his eye.

That may well be because he has clipped his hair, his 1,13 karat diamond is ever more sparkling, and he now dons a close shave similar to Johan Wissman, our national 200m record-holder (20,38).

Something is different about the former Golden League jackpot champion, and if he continues mesmerising folks with those piercing blue radars he calls eyes as he powers down runways at a stadium near you, John Christian Bert Olsson, the 2003 European Athlete-of-the-Year, will likely have a solo trip into territory in 2007 very few have ever legally touched with their own two feet.

Last time I saw Christian was at the media tent behind Ullevi Stadium following his medal ceremony at the European Championships here in Göteborg in August. He had a different look in his eye then.

Olsson had captured the European Championships here in his hometown - he grew up in a district named Angered down the road from me - and stood around taking questions from reporters - both in Swedish and in English.

He wore a blue cap backward and had the Swedish flag draped around his shoulders as he gleamed with enthusiasm and with spoke with the authority an accomplished man exudes after returning to a tent of shade following a long battle.

Relaxed and at ease back in his number one place in the sport - at least for a day, Olsson spoke freely and watched as journalists with thick Italian, French, Spanish and German accents scribbled and wrote notations of what the world would later read and appreciate.

He spoke with clarity into microphones as he was interviewed for radio spots, and he looked directly at the cameras pointed his way with red light indicators showing he was live and on-the-air, answering questions he's heard for the past two years.

Christian, are you fully recovered?

The reigning European Champion from 2002 had taken the long road, not the high road back to Göteborg following his 2004 Olympic victory in Athens, missing the entire 2005 season with an ankle injury which triggered after his first jump in the 2004 Olympic final. Olsson hoped, prayed and swore he'd be back on the runway again.

Three times he underwent surgeries to repair the damage, and three times the world indoor record holder appeared to be near the end of the line rather than at the mid-point. To Olsson, the elusive 18-metre barrier - and ultimately Jonathan Edwards' 18,29m world record - seemed to become more and more mere spectacular occurances in the history of the sport, but nothing to which Olsson could firmly attach his own name.

Olsson became the reigning Olympic, World, World Indoor, European & European Indoor Champion in 2004, a distinction no single, solitary person on the face of the earth has been able to do in holding all five titles simultaneously. He'd become used to breaking through barriers and establishing what no man thought possible of the 26-year-old Swede, who turns 27 in eight days.

So when Christian Olsson took one jump in the qualification round, jumping 17,51m with a slight wind (+0,3 m/s) - a full 28cm ahead of his nearest qualifier, Portugal's Nelson Èvora, who set a new national record with his 17,23m - Göteborg, Sweden, Europe and the world knew Olsson was back, and was hell bent on standing tallest on the medal stand.

"I would have like to do more jumps in front of this fantastic home crowd, I am sorry I had to deceive them (smiles): but at a qualification it is always better to do only one jump, " he stated directly after the event's qualification.

"I have the capacity to jump the World Record, but for Saturday I am rather set to jump a new National Record."

He had two clean jumps in the final, with his 17,67m into a slight wind (-0,7 m/s) eventually enough to win the competition by a whopping 46cm.

"When I was leading far in front of the others after my second attempt (17,67 metres), I really wanted to risk it and pushed really hard," he stated in his flash interview.

"So this is why all the next four jumps were foul: I touched the board because I tried too hard. After all my injuries it is unbelievable but at the same time perfect for me to win in front of this amazing and wonderful home crowd."

Yes, Christian Olsson was back, and Sweden had his back - through thick and thin, in sickness and in health, to never depart until he could bring on the real deal, namely a season when where he could compete injury-free, uninterrupted, and focussed on improvement rather than distracted by pain.

The seven-time national champion both indoors and out - who added an eighth to his credit, the long jump in 2006 - has appeared grandly recovered from his troublesome injuries, and competed in a short-runway competition at Friidrottens Hus Tuesday night here in Göteborg, jumping an astounding 16,07m with only a 20m allowance for his runup - less than half the customary distance which Olsson uses in his run-up to the line.

The mark was pleasing to Olsson, who competed with Per Krona (who has done a fantastic job developing in Olsson's injury absence) against boys - not men - in the annual event, his first-ever.

"It seemed like the youth thought it was fun that I jumped," he stated to Göteborgs-Postenlink), "but I assure you it was at least as fun for me, myself to do those three jumps."

Olsson has now undergone one of his best training periods ever, he says, and admits that he has broken some personal records in training, though he keeps hush about which ones those may be.

Though the measurements are secret, Olsson gave way to a huge smile, indicating he is again at the top of his game. Only small niggles remain, such which he states are to be expected by triple jumpers.

One triple jumper whom Olsson would like to emulate, not surprisingly, is Russian Tatiana Lebedeva, who, as Olsson states, is able to stay consistent in her competitions.

"Tatiana Lebedeva is admirable," he stated to Göteborgs-Posten.

"She can do a really long jump and follow it up with one just as good. I'd also like to jump like that. Perhaps I may be able to get there by focussing better on training. I am on the way."

Christian Olsson is visible again, both in an athletic and a personal sense. He has determination written over his face, which certainly shines brighter with the wave of blonde hair clipped away from his scalp. He has gotten his feet wet in a competition here in Göteborg - closer to "home" can he not get, though his house, money and post all belong in Monaco.

Glasgow is next up on the to-do list for Olsson, as he jumps indoors on a full runway for the first time in three years. He'll head back to Göteborg for the Eurojump four days later at Scandinavium, and his winter training and indoor competition will end with a go at the European Indoor Championships.

"It will be very fun to jump seriously," he says. "I have not done so indoors since I broke the world record three years ago."

Olsson owns the world indoor record of 17,83m, a mark which he set in Budapest on 2003-March-1.

Click here for Christian Olsson's homepage. (