Track Beauty of the Week: Kajsa Bergqvist

Kajsa Bergqvist is this week's Track Beauty!

Photo from Wikimedia

The retired Swedish high jumper is an athletics legend. Throughout her illustrious career, Kajsa had won gold medals in the European Indoors, European Championships, World Indoors, and the World Championships. Only the Olympic title was missing from her medal cabinet. All in all, Bergqvist had won a total of five golds, one silver, and four bronzes from the various major championships of the sport. [1]

Coming from the frigid Scandinavian north, it is unsurprising that Bergqvist excelled in indoor competition. In 2001 and 2003, she topped two consecutive editions of the World Indoors.The Swede had personal bests of 2.06m outdoors and 2.08m, the standing world indoor record. [2]

However, injury had somewhat clipped the wings of the Swedish high jumping talent. She missed the Athens Olympics after tearing her Achilles' tendon. [3] Had Kajsa been in sterling form in 2004, perhaps the golden Swedish athletics haul of 2004 could have added another gold medal. Amazingly, Bergqvist won the World Championships gold a year later in Helsinki despite the potentially career-threatening setback she sustained. [

Kajsa Bergvist hung up her spikes in 2008, retiring as one of the greatest high jumpers in history. 

References:

1. "Kajsa Bergqvist." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kajsa_Bergqvist. Retrieved 11-1-2012.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.