BIRMINGHAM, March 1, 2018 - A lot of things can change in 15 years. But many things can also remain the same. Fifteen years since hosting the World Indoor Championships for the first time, Birmingham is ready once again. Beautifully located next to the canal that connects Birmingham to Wolverhampton – the Arena Birmingham has been slightly modernized since the last time that the world’s best athletes gathered here for a World Indoor Championships.
Just like in 2003, Stefan Holm is in the building. Holm was one of the stars of Sweden’s golden generation that reached its high in the early 2000s. Holm (high jump), Kajsa Bergqvist (high jump), Carolina Klüft (pentathlon) and Christian Olsson (triple jump) all won a gold medal in Birmingham placing Sweden third in the medal table. One year later, Holm, Olsson and Klüft finished first at the Olympics which was the pinnacle of Swedish athletics golden generation.
On Thursday, Olsson and Holm were both inside of the stadium. Olsson works as a commentator while Holm is Sofie Skoog's coach. When the championships started on Thursday night with the finals in high jump – Skoog finished 10th. A result that she wasn't very pleased with.
“He (Stefan Holm) was as unhappy as me. We don’t really know why it ended up like this. So now we just have to go home and figure it out”, Skoog said afterwards.
At her second attempt, Skoog succeeded at 1,84. But after failing at 1,89 it was time to go home.
“I don’t really know how I feel right now, I’m mostly irritated. I’m irritated at myself. This was terribly bad. The conditions were very good so I don’t really understand why so many had so many problems today, she said.
Any idea why it ended up like this?
“I don’t like to blame anyone. But when we practised before it was dark, so we couldn’t see very much. And then when we started competing, they turned on the lights and we could see everything. But I can’t really blame anything today. It was just an underperforming Sofie today. Nothing else.”
For Skoog’s Swedish counterpart, Erika Kinsey, it finished slightly better, finishing on a 7th place. But she was just like Skoog not very pleased afterwards.
“I felt in good shape and condition, but I need to learn more about the run-up before the jump”, she stated afterwards.
Unhappy feelings from Kinsey - but still a seventh place in the competition:
“Yeah, it’s weird and a bit frustrating. Today was a day to really take the chance. And that feels a bit sad. Now I just have to try again for the outdoor season and improve my run-up”, she said.
For Sweden the glory days of Holm, Bergqvist, Olsson and Klüft may be over and today may not have been the best of starts. But with the likes of Skoog and Kinsey reaching the finals of the high jump and young starlets like Armand Duplantis (pole vault) and Khaddi Sagnia (long jump) making their mark the general feeling is that Swedish athletics has improved a lot after a few difficult years and can now look forward to the championships in Birmingham.
Follow Karl Sundström on Twitter: @sundstrom_karl
