The 2010 edition of the Swedish Championships were held in Falun, the hometown track of Susanna and Jenny Kallur. The twins had for a couple of years really looked forward to the chance to compete in a championship setting on their home track - the Lugnet arena (next door to the skiing facilities that have hosted the Nordic World Championships several times) - in front of friends and family. But that was sadly not to be as injuries forced both of them to be DNS's this weekend.
But despite this there were healthy sized crowds following all four days of competition Thurday(19) to Sunday (22). Thursday consisted only of the Shot Put which was – following the trend created by the Big Shot event at the DN Galan in Stockholm – held on a special facility set up at the Fisktorget square in "downtown" Falun. In the women's competition European Championships finalist Helena Engman strongly challenged her own nine days old NR 18.17 missing it by a mere 9 centimeters.
During the main part of the championships from Friday to Sunday the name Mustafa Mohamed popped up on all three days as he had set out to try the long distance triple of 10000m, 3000m Steeplechase and 5000m, something which previously had been successfully accomplished only once before (by Dan Glans in 1976) at the Swedish championships.
As Mohamed recently announced that he for the future will switch his focus from the steeplechase on the track to the marathon on the roads this would probably be his very last chance to attempt this exclusive triple on the track. A chance he didn't waste as no other runner on any of the three distances was capable of putting Mohamed under really serious pressure.
In all three events – 10,000m on Friday, Steeplechase on Saturday and 5000m on Sunday – he just ran away from his opponents with a few laps to go by increasing the pace markedly. That the winning margins were kept at a few seconds was only due to the fact that with the focus on getting the three gold medals Mohamed never really pushed it any harder than necessary to win comfortably.
Of course Mohamed was the only triple winner but there were also three double winners: Niklas Arrhenius took both the Shot Put (19.25) and the Discus Throw (SB 63.87), Charlotte Schönbeck the 800m (2:04.99) and the 1500m (4:23.79) and marathon specialist (5th in the European Championships) Isabellah Andersson the 5000m (16:05.80) and the 10,000m (33:46.35).
Klüft makes simultaneous attempt at double
Carolina Klüft also attempted a double but as her two events of choice were going on almost simultaneously on the Sunday so she ended up with a silver in the 100m (lost by 0.04 to Lena Berntsson) in addition to the emphatic gold in the Long Jump (6.48w).
Sprinter Johan Wissman was content with doing just the 200m where he had to work surprisingly hard to secure his 7th national title at the distance. His most persistent challenger was Nil de Oliveira who reached the finish line just 0.04 behind: 21.22 versus 21.26 into a strong wind.
That headwind also almost destroyed the race for hurdler Philip Nossmy who hit several hurdles and was thrown completely off-balance at the seventh hurdle. He somehow did manage to stay on his feet, get into the race again and actually win it but the opportunity to record a good winning time was lost.
Green – shows authority and confidence
The quite blustry wind also made matters complicated for the Long and Triple Jumpers but in the end the conditions must have been quite good as the general results levels were among the best ever in the meet and as the number of new PB's was quite high. But Barcelona finalist Michel Tornéus had problem getting his run-up right and had to be content with 7.96 as his official winning distance.
No such problems – at least not visible for the normal observer – for Barcelona silver medallist Emma Green in the High Jump. Green now jumps with a confidence and authority not previously displayed. After having waited for almost 1½ hour after the warm-up for the bar to get upp to her opening height of 1.84 she cleared that as well as 1.89 and 1.91 in first attempts was sufficient to secure the win. All alone Green continued with 1.96 in third attempt before ending with three decent-but-not-close attempts at 2.00
The women's throwing events were dominated by experienced athletes: Helena Engman got her 7th gold in the Shot Put, Annika Petersson her 8th in the Javelin, Cecilia Nilsson her 11th in the Hammer and Anna Söderberg her 18th (!!) in the Discus. But for Söderberg – who finished 11th in the Barcelona final a few weeks ago - the amazing and unique national title streak dating back to 1993 most probably ended now as she will have an operation this autumn on the shoulder that has bothered her for several years now.
So no surprising up-starts in those events but the men's 800m brought the big shock of the weekend: After setting new PB's in both heat and final unheralded (No 13 on the year list going into the championships) Karim Mohammadi flew past the leading runners with a blistering last 50 metres.
That gave him not only the gold medal but also one of the coveted places on the Swedish team for the "Finnkampen" – the traditional and extremely prestigious yearly dual meet Sweden vs Finland that will be staged next week (27-28 August) in Helsinki.
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