PHOTO: Bildbyrån
The former pole vaulter Kjell Isaksson had a brilliant career.
But there is one thing that still bothers him today.
– Otherwise I would have won, says Kjell to Sportbibeln.
Ten SM golds in eleven years. World record holder for several months in 1972. Double EC silver medals from 1969 and 1971. Holder of the European and Swedish record 1972–1975 and 1968–1983 respectively. Yes, the track record from Kjell Isakssons career can be made long.
Happy memories
Today he is 75 years old, and he looks back on his career as a pole vaulter with great positivity.
– It could hardly have gone much better. It was only at the Olympics that I was a bit unlucky and stretched twice. So the Olympics weren’t my thing, but it was fun to be a part of it anyway. I was in the final twice, but didn’t get a really good result. But otherwise you can’t complain, says Kjell Isaksson to Sportbibeln.
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His best memory from his career, Kjell recounts, was when he broke the world record in 1972 in Austin, Texas, USA.
– Above all, the first world record, because then I was the first to jump over 18 feet in the USA. And it was quite a funny thing because, when they were going to put up what height it was, they didn’t have the number 18, because nobody had jumped over 18 in those days. So they only had to put up 8.
Grieving
According to an article from The New York Times archives, Kjell Isaksson performed the feat in front of 18,500 people. The 75-year-old remembers that there were not only Americans among the more than eighteen thousand people.
– There were many Swedes who had traveled there. So it was fun that they were there to watch, it was a big competition.
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Kjell says that there is nothing he regrets from his career. But there is something he can regret even today.
– When I was at the European Championship in 1974 in Rome. I was the last man to jump on… 5.35 I think it was. Everyone else had torn. And then I go over the bar, don’t touch the bar, land in the bed, and then the bar falls down. Otherwise I would have won. By then I had been 2nd, 2nd, 1st in the last three European Championships. Now I was sixth instead.
READ MORE: Kjell Isaksson won ten (!) SM golds and disappeared – now the 73-year-old is betting on an unlikely comeback
“Couldn’t understand”
How the bar could fall down even though Kjell did not touch it was a great mystery.
– It was not possible to understand why… If it had been today’s elite boom, it would have remained, But that bar that existed then, it was quite stiff, it did not rock like today’s bars do.
– On TV, they tried to figure out why the bar fell down. It’s possible that the bed was pushing against the rack or something like that. So it was a bit sad, that’s probably what worries me the most. Otherwise I don’t have… I’m used to doing away with myself, so I never worry too much otherwise if things go badly, says Kjell with a laugh.
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