Carolina Kluft takes a deep breath as she begins to explain what it is like to be the greatest female athlete of her generation, to be unbeaten for five years and still feel, like the rest of us, frazzled and sometimes vulnerable. ”I’m only human, so I definitely feel the pressure all the time,” the multiple world, Olympic and European heptathlon champion says plaintively.
”It’s hard, because the pressure grows all the time. Next month I go to Osaka for the world championships and the questions start all over again. I will be asked how I will feel if I finally get beaten. I will be reminded that I haven’t lost [in] 18 competitions in a row.
”For some athletes, this would be a good pressure. It would inspire them to say, well, I’m going to win number 19 now. But everyone’s different. For me, it’s a very bad pressure when I’m made to think about it too much.
”Five years is a long time and so people are curious to know what I think. But it becomes difficult for me. It just helps that when I train here [at Varendsvallen, her secluded camp near the town of Vaxjo, a 30-minute drive from Gothenburg], I don’t go, ‘Oh no, I have to keep winning!’ That would be crazy if I had those words in my head, going blah-blah-blah all the time. I would just quit then.”
Kluft is so open and candid that it is possible still to hear the voice of a young girl inside the 24-year-old sporting superstar. It is the voice of a gawky and geeky Swedish schoolgirl who was bullied and taunted by children who noticed and perhaps feared that she was different from them.
That tearful year for Kluft ultimately strengthened her and illuminates some of the reasons why she is able to keep winning, while always confronting the possibility of defeat in the heptathlon’s demanding test over seven contrasting events.
”I can’t say I’m afraid of losing. Every year, with a new season, I know I’m not unbeatable. Everybody in my competition has the possibility of beating me. And if somebody beats me I will have to say, ‘You did a great competition. Congratulations.’ I’d be very disappointed but I would be a good loser. That is important because my life will not end with defeat. The world will continue spinning and it took me time to learn this because I used to take things to heart.”
When she was 12, Kluft and her close-knit family left a seemingly idyllic village for Vaxjo. The simple rural life she had led — running wild and free in the forest, hurdling fallen tree trunks, making a high jump out of bamboo poles — gave way to an unsettling experience. She was tall and awkward, a shy girl whose naff glasses and bony elbows suddenly made her painfully self-conscious.
Feeling lost and alone in her new school, she was an easy target for boys who could push her around and for girls who would mock her with cruel jibes.
”I had gone from this very good school to a new place I didn’t like. All the children were very hard and mean to me, and this bad atmosphere makes you really low and leaves you with no self-confidence. It took me a few years after that tough experience to work out that, OK, I’m good as I am, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.
”I don’t have to be number one or be good looking or even liked. I’m worth the same as anyone else. And the key for me was sport. I found something I loved and it didn’t matter any more what the others did or said to me. I was OK.
”Nowadays, it’s even worse for any kid who is different. There is so much pressure with the internet and TV and magazines telling them to look this or think like that, and it’s bad. If you feel strong about yourself on the inside you don’t have to care about being good-looking. I mean, what is that whole deal with this good-looking stuff? It’s enough already.”
Kluft sounds like an endearingly old-fashioned teenager, kicking out at the suffocating superficiality of consumer society while she, instead, wants to change the world.
”It’s a personal thing, but I want to try and make this world a better place. I definitely like to meet different people from different cultures so I can learn more about the world. I know I can’t save the planet — but I won’t be happy with my life unless I have done all I can.
”Sometimes you look at the news and you get sad. You lose your faith and wonder where the world is going to end up. But then I meet someone in the street, or I get a letter from a child, or I see my friends and I get my hope back. I just think we should have more respect and tolerance — and try to make this a more united world.” She giggles at her own earnest sincerity. — Â