Linus Thornblad
Swedish high jumper Linus Thörnblad has decided to retire after enduring injury problems and also depression in the last 18 months.
Thörnblad won a World Indoor Championships bronze medal in 2006 and the silver at the 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships.
He was also fourth at both the 2006 and 2010 European Athletics Championships and had a career best of 2.38m, which he jumped indoors in Göteborg in 2007.
“After a long consideration, I decided to go ahead (and retire). It has been a difficult decision considering all the amazing things that I’ve done during the last ten years,” said the 27-year-old from Lund.
He commented that one of his most favourite memories of his career was the 2006 European Athletics Championships, which was also held on home soil in Göteborg.
“To jump there before 30 to 40000 people in the audience, who are all clapping in rhythm, and then hit a personal best of 2.34m (which was to remain his best outdoors), it was quite unbelievable and something I will never forget,” he added.
He admitted that his mental problems started two years ago, not long after the European Athletics Championships in Barcelona.
“After Barcelona, I felt more and more tired. It arrived insidiously. I thought I was sick and went through test after test, but they found nothing physically wrong. I slept 12, sometimes 16, hours a day. I couldn’t train, I would work out for two days and then I slept three,” said Thörnblad in an interview with the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet last year.
Thörnblad recovered by the start of last summer and his last competition was in the Spanish town of Nerja in July when he cleared 2.25m but he decided, after having missed three months of training during the previous winter, not to go to the World Championships.
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