Stefan Holm

Stefan Holm
	Stefan Holm during the Swedish Sports Awards inside the Stockholm Globe Arena in January 2014
Personal information
Full name	Stefan Christian Holm
Born	25 May 1976; Forshaga, Sweden
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)
Men's Athletics
Olympic Games
World Championships
World Indoor Championships
European Championships
European Indoor Championships
World Athletics Final

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 10.49 in) (indoors, set 2005). He is currently coach of Swedish high jumper Sofie Skoog.

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 has 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] In October 2019, he announced he would leave his seat following the 2020 Summer Olympics.[5]

On his 40th birthday in May 2016, 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.[6]

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
1998	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
2000	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
2002	European Championships	Munich, Germany	2nd	2.29 m
2003	World Indoor Championships	Birmingham, United Kingdom	1st	2.35 m
2003	World Championships	Paris, France	2nd	2.32 m
2004	World Indoor Championships	Budapest, Hungary	1st	2.35 m
2004	Olympic Games	Athens, Greece	1st	2.36 m
2005	European Indoor Championships	Madrid, Spain	1st	2.40 m
2005	World Championships	Helsinki, Finland	7th	2.29 m
2006	World Indoor Championships	Moscow, Russia	5th	2.30 m
2006	European Championships	Gothenburg, Sweden	3rd	2.34 m
2007	European Indoor Championships	Birmingham, United Kingdom	1st	2.34 m
2007	World Championships	Osaka, Japan	4th	2.33 m
2008	World Indoor Championships	Valencia, Spain	1st	2.36 m
2008	Olympic Games	Beijing, China	4th	2.32 m

Other victories

1998: Berlin (IAAF Golden League-meet) - 2.28 m
1999: Lahti (European Cup first league) - 2.27 m; Stockholm (Grand Prix) - 2.29 m
2000: Gateshead (European cup super league) - 2.28 m
2001: Helsinki (Grand Prix) - 2.26 m; Vaasa (European cup first league) - 2.28 m; Brisbane (Goodwill Games) - 2.33 m
2002: Doha (Grand Prix) - 2.28 m; Seville (European cup first league) - 2.33 m; Zürich (Golden League-meet) - 2.35 m; Rieti (Grand Prix) - 2.29m; Paris (Grand Prix Final) - 2.31 m
2003: Lappeenranta (European cup first league) - 2.24 m; Rethymno (athletics meet) - 2.34 m; Gateshead (Grand Prix) - 2.30 m
2004: Bydgoszcz (European cup super league) - 2.32 m; Iraklio (Grand Prix) - 2.33 m; Internationales Hochsprung-Meeting Eberstadt) - 2.36 m; Stockholm (Grand Prix) - 2.33 m; Monaco (World Athletics Final) - 2.33 m
2005: Gävle (European cup first league) - 2.27 m; Paris Saint-Denis (Golden League) - 2.32 m; Stockholm (Grand Prix) - 2.33 m; Oslo (Golden League) - 2.29 m
2006: London (Grand Prix) - 2.34 m
2007: Vaasa (European cup first league) - 2.30 m; Lausanne (Grand Prix) - 2.28 m; London (Grand Prix) - 2.32 m; Stockholm (Grand Prix) - 2.35 m
2008: Istanbul (European cup first league) - 2.25 m; Athens (Grand Prix) - 2.37 m; Stockholm (Grand Prix) - 2.30 m

References

"Sjoberg's heir pays tribute to Nousiainen". IAAF. 7 March 2004. Archived from the original on 24 October 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
"High jumper Holm announces retirement". 14 September 2008. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
Thomassen, Christian Skaar (21 March 2010). Holm prevails over Sjöberg in 'wrong foot' High Jump Archived 2019-10-10 at the Wayback Machine. IAAF. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
"IOC Session elects nine new members". IOC. 10 September 2013. Archived from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 10 October 2019.
Tobias Dahlberg (23 October 2019). "Holm avslutar sina uppdrag". SVT Sport (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2020.
"Stefan Holm satte svenskt rekord - DN.SE". DN.SE (in Swedish). 25 May 2016. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.

External links

Personal Home Page (in English and Swedish)
BBC Sports Article - (2004 Summer Olympics)

Awards
Preceded by Carolina Klüft	Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal 2004	Succeeded by Kajsa Bergqvist
Sporting positions
Preceded by Aleksander Walerianczyk	Men's High Jump Best Year Performance 2004	Succeeded by Jacques Freitag Andriy Sokolovskyy
Preceded by 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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[1] "Sjoberg's heir pays tribute to Nousiainen". IAAF. 7 March 2004. Archived from the original on 24 October 2012. Retrieved 10 October 2019.

[2] "High jumper Holm announces retirement". 14 September 2008. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.

[3] Thomassen, Christian Skaar (21 March 2010). Holm prevails over Sjöberg in 'wrong foot' High Jump Archived 2019-10-10 at the Wayback Machine. IAAF. Retrieved 10 October 2019.

[4] "IOC Session elects nine new members". IOC. 10 September 2013. Archived from the original on 17 September 2018. Retrieved 10 October 2019.

[5] Tobias Dahlberg (23 October 2019). "Holm avslutar sina uppdrag". SVT Sport (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 28 October 2019. Retrieved 4 October 2020.

[6] "Stefan Holm satte svenskt rekord - DN.SE". DN.SE (in Swedish). 25 May 2016. Archived from the original on 10 October 2019. Retrieved 10 October 2019.