Blanka Vlašic aka Blanka biography

Blanka Vlašić (born November 8, 1983 in Split) is a Croatian high jumper and current world champion. Her personal best jump at 2.07 m is also the national record and was set on August 07, 2007. Only two women (one indoor and one outdoor) have jumped higher than this.

Blanka was named after Casablanca, a city where her father competed at the 1983 Mediterranean Games around the time of her birth. She became a world champion in 2007 World Championships in Athletics with a jump of 2.05 m. She previously won the high jump bronze medal at the 2004 IAAF World Indoor Championships, and before that she was a double world junior champion.

She competed at the 2000 and 2004 Olympics without much success, although she was aged just sixteen and twenty at the respective times.

She finished 4th in the high jump final at the 2006 European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg earning the distinction of becoming the first athlete not to win a medal with a jump higher than 2 m (she cleared 2.01 m, but she needed more attempts than Bronze Medalist, Kajsa Bergqvist).

Blanka Vlašić is coached by her father Joško, a former decathlete, whose personal best, set in 1984, still stands as the Croatian national record; the two are a rare example of father and daughter simultaneously holding athletics national records.

As of 2007, Vlašić is the world's top-ranked high jumper, as well as being first in the overall rankings. (21-3-2008 wikipedia)