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Carolina Evelyn Klüft (; born 2 February 1983) is a retired Swedish track and field athlete who competed in the heptathlon, pentathlon, long jump and triple jump. She was an Olympic Games, having won the heptathlon title in 2004. She was also a three-time World heptathlon champion, World Indoor pentathlon champion, a two-time European heptathlon champion and a two-time European Indoor pentathlon champion. Klüft is the only athlete ever to win three consecutive world titles in the heptathlon (2003, 2005, 2007). She was unbeaten in 22 heptathlon and pentathlon competitions from 2002 to 2007, her entire combined events career as a senior athlete, winning nine consecutive gold medals in major championships.
Klüft first rose to prominence by winning the heptathlon at the 2002 European Championships and setting a new world junior record of 6,542 points. She then won the 2003 World Championships, becoming the third athlete ever to score over 7,000 points. She is 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, behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee who set the world record of 7,291 points.
Besides having been a world class heptathlete, Klüft also had international success in the long jump event. She won the bronze medal at the 2004 World Indoor Championships in Budapest and finished fourth at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu.
On 2 September 2012 at the Finland-Sweden Athletics International, Klüft officially ended her career and retired from sports.
Klüft comes from a family with sporting traditions: her father Johnny played professional football in the Swedish Allsvenskan and her mother was an international long jumper. She started out playing football herself but took up athletics at the age of twelve. 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 coach Agne Bergvall suggested she had a future in it. Bergvall has been her main coach ever since.
Klüft is tall and weighs . Her physique was well-suited to multi-events: being tall and lean for the running and jumping events but also powerful enough to perform well in the shot put and javelin. She showed more natural ability in the jumping events, sprinting and hurdles, and steadily improved in the throwing events and 800 m and has been described as having no weaknesses across the seven events. This was demonstrated by her finishing in the top six in all disciplines of the 2007 World Championship heptathlon. 2007 World Championship results
She was also a member of the Swedish 4 × 100 m relay team at international competitions, and was part of the team that set the national record.
She was particularly friendly with British rival Kelly Sotherton, and the two were often seen chatting during competitions. Klüft regularly led the other heptathletes on a lap of honor after a major competition. She is often referred to by the nickname 'Carro' by people who know her.
When not training or competing, Klüft was a student at the Linnaeus University, studying Peace and Development. She visited areas of Sri Lanka hit by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake to make a film for Swedish TV Plan Sri Lanka and also sponsors children in Africa.
She was 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.
Klüft was nominated for four consecutive Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year awards from 2005 to 2008.
She had a mascot, a small stuffed toy representing Eeyore, that she took everywhere. Klüft claims that this was not for luck, but to remind her of her philosophy that sport is for fun.
She participated as a celebrity dancer in Let's Dance 2025 broadcast on TV4.
She is one of very few athletes to at some time hold all five available international titles: Olympic, World Outdoor, Continental (Europe in her case) Outdoor, World Indoor and Continental Indoor.
She won her first major outdoor title, the heptathlon at the 2003 World Championships in Paris with a score of 7,001 points, ahead of Eunice Barber, who had 6,755 points. Klüft thus became the third woman ever to break the 7,000-point barrier in the heptathlon. She set six personal bests in the seven disciplines including a 1.94 m high jump and a 200 m run of 22.98 s. At one stage she was on the brink of elimination from the competition after overstepping on the first two of her three long jump attempts but ended up recording the best jump of the competition with 6.68 m. She was later awarded the Waterford Crystal European Athlete of the Year Trophy 2003. That same year, Klüft also received the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal.
She won the heptathlon gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens with a score of 6,952 points. She took the lead after the high jump and extended her lead after every event from then on. With Eunice Barber absent through injury, Klüft won by an Olympic record margin of 517 points, ahead of Austra Skujytė. She also entered the long jump, qualifying for the final but finishing 11th.
The day before the 2005 World Championships in Athletics in Helsinki, Klüft injured her foot. The injury affected her performance, particularly in the high jump which was a clearance of only 1.82 m. Klüft fell well behind Eunice Barber but made a comeback with a personal best shot put of 15.02 m and then took the lead after the 200 m. She then stretched her lead with a long jump effort of 6.87 m, and held on to an advantage of only 18 points after the javelin. She overtook Barber at the end of the 800 m to retain the title. Klüft totaled 6,887 points, finishing ahead of Barber who took the silver medal with 6,824 points.
She defended her title at the 2006 European Athletics Championships with a score of 6,740 points, despite having been hampered by injuries throughout her preparation. She performed well below her best but still won comfortably following the withdrawal of her rival Barber after the high jump. Klüft went on to compete in the individual long jump but finished 6th.
Still recovering from her fitness problems of the previous year, she did only one heptathlon before the World Championships, a fifth victory in Götzis.
At the World Championships in Osaka, Klüft had the opportunity to become the only woman to win three world titles in the heptathlon. However, she faced strong competition from Lyudmila Blonska of Ukraine, who had, earlier in the year, set the world best heptathlon score of 2007. Klüft started the first day by equaling her personal best of 13.15s in the 100 m hurdles and a new personal best of 1.95 m in the high jump. Solid performances of 14.81 in the shot put and 23.38 in the 200 m followed, for Klüft to hold the lead from Blonska after day one, with 4162 points. On the second day, Klüft recorded a long jump of 6.85 m, threw 47.98 m in the javelin and ran 2:12.56 in the 800 metres to claim her third World Championship gold. She posted a personal best points score of 7,032, putting her second on the all-time list, and beating Larisa Turchinskaya's 18-year-old European record.
Klüft announced on 19 March that she would not contest any heptathlons in 2008, including defending her title at the Olympics, stating that she was no longer motivated to train for and compete in heptathlons. Instead she decided to concentrate upon long jump and also train seriously for triple jump. Although Klüft was inexperienced in triple jump, she had worked with Yannick Tregaro (coach of Olympic champion Christian Olsson), who predicted that she could jump over 14.50 m.
She entered both the long jump and triple jump at the 2008 Olympics. Her best effort of 13.90 m did not qualify her for the triple jump final. She ended ninth in the long jump with a result of 6.49 m.
Although Klüft did not defend her heptathlon title at the Beijing Olympics, she stated that she might yet contest another heptathlon, after the 2008 season.
2007: Third world heptathlon title
Her victory in the 2007 European Indoor Championships in Birmingham was by a margin of only 17 points over home favorite Kelly Sotherton. Klüft again narrowly missed the world pentathlon record, with a score of 4944 points.
2008: Injury and switch to long & triple jump
She competed in an indoor triathlon (60 m hurdles, long jump and 400 m) in the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix. Klüft narrowly won the competition after setting an indoor personal best of 52.98 in the 400 m. Kelly Sotherton finished just 18 points behind Klüft, beating the Swede in both the hurdles and 400 m. On 22 February, Klüft announced that she had ruptured her hamstring and that, as a result, she would not compete at the World Indoor Championships on 7 March.
2009: Injury and surgery
Klüft missed the 2009 World Championships in Berlin as well as the rest of the season after suffering a hamstring injury she picked up in July in Sweden. She had surgery in the middle of July, after which she needed around six months rehabilitation.
2010: European long jump finalist
Klüft competed in the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona, reaching the long jump final but ultimately finishing 11th out of the twelve athletes that reached the final. She jumped 6.33 metres but was almost 60 centimetres behind gold medalist Ineta Radēviča of Latvia. Klüft said she "didn't have any power in my legs" and "my legs felt heavy today" after qualifying for the final. She also stated that reaching the final had satisfied her.
2011: Fourth world long jumper
The long jump at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu would be Klüft's last major championship start. After a qualifying 6.60 m jump, Klüft only managed 6.56 m in the final. The result was still enough to secure fourth place, but Klüft was 18 cm behind Belarusian Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova who claimed the bronze medal.
Achievements
International competitions
2000 World Junior Championships Santiago, Chile 1st Heptathlon 6056 pts 2001 European Junior Championships Grosseto, Italy 1st Heptathlon 6022 pts 2002 European Indoor Championships Vienna, Austria 3rd Pentathlon 4535 pts World Junior Championships Kingston, Jamaica 1st Heptathlon 6470 pts European Championships Munich, Germany 1st Heptathlon 6542 pts 2003 World Indoor Championships Birmingham, United Kingdom 1st Pentathlon 4933 pts ' ' European U23 Championships Bydgoszcz, Poland 1st Long jump 6.86 m ' ' World Championships Paris, France 1st Heptathlon 7001 pts 2004 World Indoor Championships Budapest, Hungary 3rd Long jump 6.92 m Olympic Games Athens, Greece 11th Long jump 6.63 m 1st Heptathlon 6952 pts 2005 European Indoor Championships Madrid, Spain 1st Pentathlon 4948 pts ' ' European U23 Championships Erfurt, Germany 1st Long jump 6.79 m World Championships Helsinki, Finland 1st Heptathlon 6887 pts 2006 European Championships Gothenburg, Sweden 5th 4 × 100 m relay 44.16 6th Long jump 6.54 m 1st Heptathlon 6740 pts 2007 European Indoor Championships Birmingham, United Kingdom 1st Pentathlon 4944 pts World Championships Osaka, Japan 1st Heptathlon 7032 pts 2008 Olympic Games Beijing, China 8th Long jump 6.49 m 18th (q) Triple jump 13.97 m 2010 European Championships Barcelona, Spain 11th Long jump 6.33 m 2011 European Team Championships Super League Stockholm, Sweden 2nd Long jump 6.73 m World Championships Daegu, South Korea 4th Long jump 6.56 m
Personal bests
+Outdoor 100 m hurdles 13.15 s 1102 Götzis, Austria 28 May 2005 High jump 1.95 m 1171 Osaka, Japan 25 August 2007 Shot put 15.05 m 864 Götzis, Austria 27 May 2006 200 metres 22.98 s 1081 Paris-St-Denis, France 23 August 2003 Long jump 6.97 m 1162 Tallinn, Estonia 4 July 2004 Javelin throw 50.96 m 879 Götzis, Austria 28 May 2006 800 metres 2:08.89 min 981 Helsinki, Finland 7 August 2005 Heptathlon 7032 pts PB total: 7240 Osaka, Japan 26 August 2007 European record, 2nd all time Heptathlon U20 6542 pts PB total: 6685 Munich, Germany 10 August 2002 100 metres 11.48 s Karlstad, Sweden 6 August 2004 400 metres 53.17 s Gävle, Sweden 17 August 2002 4 × 100 m relay 43.61 s Gothenburg, Sweden 27 August 2005 4 × 400 m relay 3:31.28 min Gävle, Sweden 19 June 2005 Triple jump 14.29 m Växjö, Sweden 8 June 2008 +Indoor 60 m hurdles 8.19 s 1086 Birmingham, United Kingdom 14 March 2003 High jump 1.93 m 1145 Madrid, Spain 4 March 2005 Shot put 14.48 m 826 Birmingham, United Kingdom 14 March 2003 Long jump 6.92 m 1145 Budapest, Hungary 7 March 2004 = 800 metres 2:13.04 min 921 Birmingham, United Kingdom 2 March 2007 Pentathlon 4948 pts PB total: 5014 Madrid, Spain 4 March 2005 , 8th all time 60 metres 7.40 s Malmö, Sweden 12 February 2005 400 metres 52.98 s Birmingham, United Kingdom 16 February 2008
Circuit wins and titles
National titles
Other honours
External links
Categories: 1983 Births, Living People, Sportspeople From Borås Municipality, Swedish Heptathletes, Swedish Female Long Jumpers, Swedish Female Triple Jumpers, Olympic Athletes For Sweden, Olympic Gold Medalists For Sweden, Athletes At The 2004 Summer Olympics, Athletes At The 2008 Summer Olympics, World Athletics Championships Medalists, European Athletics Championships Medalists, Medalists At The 2004 Summer Olympics, Olympic Gold Medalists In Athletics, European Athlete Of The Year Winners, World Athletics Indoor Championships Winners, World Athletics Championships Winners, Athletes From Västra Götaland County, 20th-century Swedish Women, 21st-century Swedish Sportswomen
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