Sweden's Gold medal hopes look bleak !

Olympics 2008 in Beijing are nearing the end this weekend, and the Sweden camp is somber with its performance this time. Sweden this time is yet to take a Gold medal and now all the hopes of one are looking bleak. The only time the Scandinavian nation did not won a Gold was in Seoul games of 1988 and there was no participation in 1904 which was attended very sparsely being the exception.


It was a mixed performance from Swede athletes who took 4 Golds at the Athens Olympics 4 years ago with their overall medal tally of 7 , but at Beijing edition of Olympics the medal tally has sharply come down to only 3 silvers and with the only one of the final competition in which Sweden participates is the Women's Long Jump in which the Heptathlon champion Carolina Klüft is taking part, after switching over from the other discipline.

Firstly, Sweden's Carolina Klüft did not want to defend her heptathlon title which she won at the Athens's Olympics, citing her lack of motivation in the event and instead opted for the Long Jump and Triple jump events which she is yet to prove in, earlier she failed to qualify for the finals of the triple jump. Finals of the High Jump competition in which she qualified are slated for Aug 22 Friday at the National stadium at 19:20.

Wrestler Ara Abrahamian's tiff with the IOC has cost Sweden camp with another medal, IOC finally rejecting his adamant repulsive behaviour with stripping his medal. And Susanna Kallur had a very unfortunate run after she fell in the 100m hurdles an event in which she was one of the strong contenders for Gold.

Now the latest, Stefan Holm lost his defence to the Men's High Jump title with a performance in which he came fourth with failing to jump more than 2.32 metres, an event which he won at Athens, eventually Andrey Silnov from Russia won the Gold by clearing 2.36 metres.

Germaine Mason of Britain won silver with 2.34m on countback from Russian Yaroslav Rybakov, who took bronze.

With all eyes on the final at the Long Jump finals on Friday in which Russian contingent are leading contenders with Tatyana Lebedeva has a personal best of 7.33 which is close to the Olympic Record set by the American athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee at Seoul Olympics in 1988, World Record of 7.52m is held by Galina Chistyakova of the former USSR. So, any one can make a guess of Sweden's Gold hopes at the Beijing Olympics.


Start List for the Women's Long Jump Final on Aug 22


Ref :-IOC, Wikipedia.