PHOTO: Bildbyrån
From the sick bed to EC gold.
Jumper Elna Widerström took a stunning gold in the one-meter event in Belgrade.
– It feels completely unreal, she tells TT.
There were double Swedish medals in the one-meter event, then also Olympic-ready Emilia Nilsson Garip took bronze.
For 20-year-olds Elna Widerström the gold came as a complete surprise.
– I have been sick for the past 1.5 weeks and haven’t trained for over a week. Yesterday, the training did not go well at all, she says.
– So today I just came back here and tried to find my way back to jumping.
Blue-yellow success
She did that so well that she dominated a lot. Widerström got a total of 250.25 points and into second place Alexandra BlazowskaPoland, separated by almost 19 points.
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Widerström previously has an EC bronze in synchronized jumping from 2022 together with Nilsson Garip, so this was her first individual championship medal internationally.
Unexpected gold
Widerström attends college in the United States, the University of Minnesota, and her coach pushed for a European Championship gold before she went home to Sweden.
– Just jump as you can and you can take gold, he said. I just tried to keep his words in the back of my head, says Widerström, who is aiming for the Olympics in four years.
– I think only Sweden has a quota place and Emilia has taken it. So my goal is 2028, she says.
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For Emilia Nilsson Garip, the bronze also came as a surprise considering that she started the final badly.
– My start to the competition was not what I had hoped for. I missed my first two jumps pretty badly. So that I came third was fun, says Nilsson Garip, who won double European Championship silver last year.
READ MORE: The Swedish success: Sara Junevik was the fastest of all in the absence of swimming queen Sarah Sjöström
The one-meter short is not an Olympic event, and 21-year-old Emilia Nilsson Garip has focused on the three-meter short, which applies to her in Paris.
Three meters in the EC will be decided on Midsummer’s Eve.
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