Stefan Holm

Stefan Holm

Stefan Holm in 2014
Personal information
Full name Stefan Christian Holm
Born (1976-05-25) 25 May 1976
Forshaga, Värmland County
Height 1.81 m (5 ft 11 in)
Sport
Country  Sweden
Event(s) High jump
Club Kils AIK
Retired 2008
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s) 2.37 m
2.40 m (indoors)
Medal record
Men’s Athletics
Event 1st 2nd 3rd
Olympic Games 1 0 0
World Championships 0 1 0
World Indoor Championships 4 0 0
European Championships 0 1 1
European Indoor Championships 2 1 0
Continental Cup 0 0 0
Total 7 3 1
Olympic Games
2004 Athens High jump
World Championships
2003 Paris High jump
World Indoor Championships
2001 Lisboa High jump
2003 Birmingham High jump
2004 Budapest High jump
2008 Valencia High jump
European Championships
2002 Munich High jump
2006 Gothenburg High jump
European Indoor Championships
2005 Madrid High jump
2007 Birmingham High jump
2002 Vienna High jump
World Athletics Final
2004 Monte Carlo High jump
2003 Monte Carlo High jump
2007 Stuttgart High jump
2008 Stuttgart High jump
2005 Monte Carlo High jump
2006 Stuttgart High jump

Stefan Christian Holm (born 25 May 1976) is a retired Swedish high jumper. He has won an Olympic gold medal, a silver in the World Championships, and one silver and one bronze medal in the European Championships. His personal records are 2.37 m (7 ft 9.3in) (outdoors, set 2008) and 2.40 m (7 ft 10.49in) (indoors, set 2005).

Biography

Holm was born in Forshaga, the son of father Johnny and mother Elisabeth. He has a sister named Veronica who is three years older than he is. Holm married Anna Lycke in 2005 and had a son, Melwin, who was born in 2004.

Holm, who was trained by his father, hadn't always been a high jumper. For many of his childhood years, Holm played football. It was not until 1991 when he realized that he had much more potential as a high jumper than a football player.

His inspiration for high-jumping began when he was 8 years old. He saw a Swedish high-jumping legend, and former world-record holder, Patrik Sjöberg, compete on television.[1]

Holm's big breakthrough onto the world athletics scene came in 2000, when he finished 4th at the Sydney Olympics with a leap of 2.32m (7 ft 7.34in). 24 years old at the time, Holm had been high jumping for over half of his life.

He set an indoor personal best of 2.36 (7 ft 8.91in) in 2003 to win the Hochsprung mit Musik meeting, and managed to reach the same height outdoors the following year while winning the Internationales Hochsprung-Meeting Eberstadt. In 2004, Holm won the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens with a jump of 2.36 and was awarded the Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal.

Holm has the distinction of jumping 2 m or higher in six different techniques. With his height, being only 1.81 m, he shares the unofficial World Record of height jumped above own height (59 cm) with USA's 1970s jumper Franklin Jacobs. In 1993 he participated in a decathlon where he jumped higher in the high jump (2.04 m) than in the pole vault (2.00 m).

Holm finished 4th at the 2008 Summer Olympics with a leap of 2.32 m. On 13 September 2008 he announced his retirement from the sport. Holm ended his 20-year career with a second place at the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart.[2]

Holm is one of two jumpers to have cleared 2.40 m indoors since Javier Sotomayor (the other being Ivan Ukhov) - outdoors this has also been achieved by Vyacheslav Voronin.

He briefly returned to high jump competition in 2010 for a charity event: the Auto Lounge Comeback competition in Sweden. As his main rival Patrik Sjöberg had a knee injury, Holm agreed to jump off his wrong foot to even the score. He beat Sjöberg in the wrong-footed faceoff and went back to his normal takeoff to jump 2.15 m for third behind Ukhov and Donald Thomas.[3]

Holm lives in Karlstad, Sweden, and competed for Kils AIK. He is an avid fan of Färjestad BK, an ice hockey team in the top-tier Swedish Hockey League (SHL), and also of IF Björklöven in the second-tier league HockeyAllsvenskan.

He became an IOC member at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires in September 2013.[4]

On his 40th birthday, Holm set a new Swedish veteran record for 40-year olds (M40). With 2.06 m he broke the previous record of 2.05 m, which had been held by Egon Nilsson for almost 50 years.[5]

Competition record

Year Competition Venue Position Notes
Representing  Sweden
1993 European Junior Championships San Sebastián, Spain 11th 2.06 m
1994 World Junior Championships Lisbon, Portugal 7th 2.10 m
1995 European Junior Championships Nyíregyháza, Hungary 6th 2.17 m
1997 World Indoor Championships Paris, France 8th 2.25 m
1998 European Indoor Championships Valencia, Spain 19th (q) 2.20 m
European Championships Budapest, Hungary 7th 2.27 m
1999 World Indoor Championships Maebashi, Japan 6th 2.25 m
Universiade Palma de Mallorca, Spain 4th 2.25 m
World Championships Seville, Spain 10th 2.25 m
2000 European Indoor Championships Ghent, Belgium 4th 2.32 m
Olympic Games Sydney, Australia 4th 2.32 m
2001 World Indoor Championships Lisbon, Portugal 1st 2.32 m
World Championships Edmonton, Canada 4th 2.30 m
Goodwill Games Brisbane, Australia 1st 2.33 m
2002 European Indoor Championships Vienna, Austria 2nd 2.30 m
European Championships Munich, Germany 2nd 2.29 m
2003 World Indoor Championships Birmingham, United Kingdom 1st 2.35 m
World Championships Paris, France 2nd 2.32 m
2004 World Indoor Championships Budapest, Hungary 1st 2.35 m
Olympic Games Athens, Greece 1st 2.36 m
2005 European Indoor Championships Madrid, Spain 1st 2.40 m
World Championships Helsinki, Finland 7th 2.29 m
2006 World Indoor Championships Moscow, Russia 5th 2.30 m
European Championships Gothenburg, Sweden 3rd 2.34 m
2007 European Indoor Championships Birmingham, United Kingdom 1st 2.34 m
World Championships Osaka, Japan 4th 2.33 m
2008 World Indoor Championships Valencia, Spain 1st 2.36 m
Olympic Games Beijing, China 4th 2.32 m

Other victories

References

  1. ↑ "Sjoberg's heir pays tribute to Nousiainen". 2004-03-07. Retrieved 2010-01-20.
  2. ↑ High jumper Holm announces retirement
  3. ↑ Thomassen, Christian Skaar (2010-03-21). Holm prevails over Sjöberg in 'wrong foot' High Jump. IAAF. Retrieved on 2010-03-23.
  4. ↑ IOC Session elects nine new members
  5. ↑ "Stefan Holm satte svenskt rekord - DN.SE". DN.SE (in Swedish). 2016-05-25. Retrieved 2016-05-26.
Awards
Preceded by
Carolina Klüft		 Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal
2004 		Succeeded by
Kajsa Bergqvist
Sporting positions
Preceded by
Poland Aleksander Walerianczyk		 Men's High Jump Best Year Performance
2004 		Succeeded by
South Africa Jacques Freitag
Ukraine Andriy Sokolovskyy
Preceded by
Russia Andrey Silnov		 Men's High Jump Best Year Performance
alongside Donald Thomas, Yaroslav Rybakov and Kyriacos Ioannou
2007 		Succeeded by
Andrey Silnov
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