Carolina Evelyn Klüft (born February 2, 1983) is a
Swedish athlete competing in heptathlon, long jump
and pentathlon. She is the current Olympic, World
(three-time) and European (twice) heptathlon
champion and is regarded as one of the best female
athletes in the world. She is also the European
record holder for heptathlon with a personal best of
7,032 points. This score ranks her second on the
all-time heptathlon points score list, only behind
Jackie Joyner-Kersee who set the world record of
7,291 points. She is the only athlete ever to win
three world titles in heptathlon.
Her main coach is Agne Bergvall. She is 1.78 m (5 ft
10 in) tall and weighs 65 kg.
Born in Sandhult, Västergötland, Carolina Klüft grew
up in Växjö, where her father, mother and three
sisters still live. She currently lives in
Karlskrona together with her husband Patrik Klüft,
who is a pole vaulter. They were married in
September 2007 at Crichton Parish Church in
Midlothian, Scotland.
Klüft comes from a family with sporting tradition:
her father, Johnny, played professional soccer in
the Swedish Allsvenskan and her mother was an
international long jumper. She started out playing
soccer herself but took up athletics at the age of
12. She has described being subjected to bullying at
school after moving to Växjö and subsequently using
her athletic prowess to gain respect. Klüft took up
the heptathlon in 2000 after Bergvall suggested she
had a future in it.
Klüft's physique is well-suited to multi-events: she
is tall and lean for the running and jumping events
but also powerful enough to perform well in the shot
put and javelin. She has shown more natural ability
in the jumping events, sprinting and hurdles, and
has steadily improved in the throwing events and 800
m and has now been described as having no weaknesses
across the seven events. This is demonstrated by her
finishing in the top six in all disciplines of the
2007 World Championship heptathlon.
She is also normally a member of the Swedish 4 x 100
m relay team at international competitions, and was
part of the team that set the national record.
She is particularly friendly with British rival
Kelly Sotherton, and the two can often be seen
chatting during competitions. Klüft regularly leads
the other heptathletes on a lap of honour after a
major competition. She is often referred to by the
nickname 'Carro' by people who know her.
When not training or competing, Klüft is a student
at the University of Växjö, studying Peace and
Development. She has visited areas of Sri Lanka hit
by the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami to make a film for
Swedish TV and also sponsors children in Africa.
She is part of Reebok's "I am what I am" advertising
campaign along with several other sports stars. She
has been the focus of poster photography for Reebok,
taken by celebrity photographer Jason Bell.
Carolina has been nominated for three consecutive
Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year awards from
2005-2007.
She has a mascot, a small stuffed toy representing
Eeyore, that she takes everywhere. Klüft claims that
this is not for luck, but to remind her of her
philosophy that sport is for fun.
She is one of very few athletes to at some time hold
all five available international titles, Olympic,
World Outdoor, Regional (Europe in her case)
Outdoor, World Indoor and Regional Indoor. And at
the age of 22 she was the youngest athlete ever to
hold all five. She has been unbeaten all in 22
heptathlon/pentathlon competitions since March 2002,
winning nine consecutive gold medals in major
championships.
Klüft has hinted that she may choose to concentrate
on a single event after the 2008 Beijing Olympics,
although she has not ruled out competing in a
heptathlon beyond then. She stated after the 2007
World Championships that she will continue in the
heptathlon as long as she is motivated by her
enjoyment of the event but refused to confirm that
she will defend the heptathlon title in Beijing.
