page_title: Blanka Vlašić
section_title: 2010 : World indoor title and first European title
hierarchical_section_title: Blanka Vlašić / Biography / 2010 : World indoor title and first European title
caption_attribution_description: Blanka Vlašić
context_page_description: Blanka Vlašić is a Croatian track and field athlete who specialises in the high jump. She is a two-time world champion and double Olympic medallist who ranks as the joint second highest female jumper of all time with her personal best of 2.08 m. She is the Croatian record holder in the event, and the former indoor world champion.
  The daughter of Croatian decathlon record holder Joško Vlašić, she was a talented junior athlete and attended her first Olympic Games in 2000 Sydney at the age of sixteen. She won the World Junior Championships in Athletics in both 2000 and 2002. Vlašić broke the Croatia national record in 2004 and also won her first world senior medal at the World Indoor Championships that year. A hyperthyroid condition hindered her second Olympic appearance in Athens and she spent the 2005 season recuperating from surgery.
  She returned in 2006, taking the silver at the World Indoor Championships. The 2007 season signalled a strong run of form: she won at the 2007 World Championships, became the indoor world champion in 2008 and her winning streak came to an end with a narrow loss at the Beijing Olympics, where she took silver.
context_section_description: On 6 February 2010, Vlašić cleared 2.06 m in Arnstadt, Germany. The victory at the Hochsprung mit Musik added one centimetre to her own personal best and Croatian record and brought her to third on the all-time indoor lists behind Sweden's Kajsa Bergqvist (2.08 m in 2006) and Germany's Heike Henkel (2,07 m in 1992). A month later, she retained her world indoor title in Doha with 2.00 m, winning ahead of Spain's Ruth Beitia and USA's Chaunté Lowe, both jumping 1.98 m. Through the outdoor season, she wins the first edition of the IAAF Diamond League by winning the seven meetings in the event. She and her main rival of the season Chaunté Lowe both led the circuit. Vlašić cleared 2.00 m on six out of seven occasions in the circuit.
  On 1 August 2010 Vlašić won her first European title with 2.03 m, equalling the championship record set by Belgian's Tia Hellebaut and Bulgaria's Venelina Veneva-Mateeva four years earlier at the 2006 edition in Gothenburg. She beat Sweden's Emma Green (silver) and Germany's Ariane Friedrich (bronze), both jumping 2.01 m.
  Vlašić was selected along with Emma Green to represent Europe at the Continental Cup on her home soil of Split. She won the event with 2.05 m and equalled Chaunté Lowe's world leading jump. She raised the bar at 2.10 m, what would be a world record, but failed to break it.
  At the end of the year, Vlašić was crowned European Athlete and IAAF World Athlete of the year, succeeding to Marta Domínguez (Europe) and Sanya Richards-Ross (World).
caption: Blanka Vlašić at the 2010 European Championships in Barcelona.
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