Blanka Vlašić, Croatia's high jump queen

With the 2024 European Athletics Championships in Rome in full swing, we thought it was time for a look back at the career of Blanka Vlašić, one of the all-time greats in European athletics. All stats and info are sourced from World Athletics unless otherwise stated.

Vlašić was born on November 8, 1983 in the Croatian city of Split. She took up sport at an early age, which was no coincidence.

She grew up in a sporting environment, as her father, Joško Vlašić, was a successful decathlete who won the gold medal at the 1983 Mediterranean Games, per Total Croatia News. The tournament was organised in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, which is said to have inspired the name 'Blanka'. Her mother, Verena, is a former Yugoslavian cross-country skiing champion.

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Her younger brother, Nikola, is a footballer and has played for West Ham and is currently at Torino. However, Blanka chose to pursue a career in athletics and, more specifically, the high jump.

The promising youngster competed at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, where she gained experience at the highest level. At that time, the senior category was still too high for Vlašić, who did win the 2000 World Junior Championships, the first major title of her career.

At the Mediterranean Games in Tunis (Tunisia) in 2001, she confirmed her promising status by winning the gold medal, her first on the senior circuit, followed by a sixth place at the 2001 World Championships in Edmonton (Canada). In 2002, in Kingston (Jamaica), she won another junior world title, while continuously improving herself.

In 2003, Vlašić took things to another level and broke the 2-metre mark at the IAAF Grand Prix in Zagreb, in her native Croatia. She looked ready for the 2004 Athens Olympics.

After winning the bronze medal at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Budapest (Hungary) and setting a new Croatian record of 2.03m, Vlašić set her sights on the Athens Olympics. However, things did not go as planned, as Vlašić only managed 11th place in the high jump final.

Shorty later, she was diagnosed with a hyperthyroid condition, for which she underwent surgery, per Total Croatia News. She only made two appearances that season, but still managed to win the Croatian title.

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Vlašić was determined to come back stronger than ever and enjoyed an excellent 2006, improving her personal indoor record to 2.05m and picking up a silver medal at the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships.

From then on, Vlašić never looked back and racked up championship titles, including the first of her two world titles in Osaka, Japan, in 2007. She would go on to win two more world indoor titles and a European title, among other medals.

However, an Olympic title is the only important thing missing from Vlašić's glittering list of honours. In 2008, in Beijing (China), she had to settle with silver behind Belgium's Thia Hellebaut, while she missed out on the 2012 London Olympics due to injury.

In 2016, the year of the Rio Olympics, she was still struggling with an Achilles problem, which sidelined her for most of the season. However, Vlašić showed her class and jumped to a bronze medal, behind Spain's Ruth Beitia and Bulgaria's Mirela Demireva, further underlining her legendary status.

That status had already assumed enormous proportions after a 2.08m jump in 2009, a personal best and height that made her the second-highest female jumper of all time.

The year after the Rio Olympics, Vlašić struggled with a foot problem, and she eventually retired on 19 February 2021, per World Athletics.

After her active career, Vlašić announced that she was in a relationship and married Belgian sports journalist Ruben Van Gucht, with whom he has a son together, per Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.

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