Angelica Bengtsson practices to vault with the seniors

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Angelica Bengtsson practices to vault with the seniors

Angelica Bengtsson of Sweden at the Moncton Press Conference (Getty Images)
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With a background in gymnastics, it's hardly surprising that Angelica Bengtsson wound up in the most technically challenging event in athletics. What's more impressive is how well the diminutive Bengtsson has adapted not only to the technique of the Pole Vault, but how successful she's been.

Bengtsson dominated the event at the World Youth Championships in 2009, clearing 4.32m easily, and this year has gone up to 4.47m. With her seventeenth birthday only recently past, Bengtsson thus holds the World Youth best in the relatively young event, and is only 1cm away from the World Junior record of 4.48m set by Silke Spiegelburg in 2005.

Marks like 4.47m have put Bengtsson in legitimate competition with senior athletes as well, and she won the 2010 Swedish Indoor championships outright. She declined a spot on the Swedish team for the European Championships in Barcelona in order to concentrate completely on competition in Moncton. "I have all my life to be in a European Championships," she told the Swedish paper Sportbladet.

"It feels good to be jumping high in big meets," she added. The success gives her added confidence at the championship level. "The competition this year is much better, but I think I have a good chance."

Starting early, Bengtsson practiced both gymnastics and athletics, originally hoping to follow her father into the Javelin. Her gymnastics training, however, made her a better fit for the vault.
"The part in the air," she said, "I'm good at. I'm working on running faster up to the plant."

With only one centimetre between her best and the World Junior Record, Bengtsson isn't even looking at that mark. Victory is her first goal.

"I'm not going to say how high I've jumped in training," says Bengtsson as she tactfully steps around discussion of the record. "But it's not far away."

Instead, she explains, "My goal is the Swedish national record." That mark, 4.51m, was set by Kirsten Belin in 2002, when Bengtsson was all of nine years old.

Of course, a Swedish record would also mean a World Junior Record, but if Bengtsson has the chance to set the crossbar on Saturday afternoon (24th) when the women's Pole Vault final happens, it will likely go to 4.52m rather than 4.48m.

Parker Morse for the IAAF