Carolina Kluft | Olympics

Athlete Name: Carolina Kluft

Olympic Event: Women’s Long Jump (World Record: 7.52m Galina Chistyakova, URS)

Olympic team: Sweden

Height/Weight: 5'10" / 141 lbs

Personal Best: 6.97m (Tallinn)

2008 Beijing Olympics Expectation: Podium Finish

About Carolina Kluft: Kluft is renowned for her success in the Heptathlon for which she won gold in the 2004 Athens Olympics and was unbeaten between 2002 and 2007. However in March 2008, Kluft announced that she would not be defending her Heptathlon title at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and would instead focus on the women’s long jump. In 2004 Kluft won a bronze medal in the long jump at the World Indoor Championships but has little other experience competing outside the heptathlon. She has amassed an impressive five gold medals outside of the Olympics and is second on the all-time heptathlon points score list with 7,032.

(picture by Björn Bergman on commons.wikimedia.org)