Ingemar Stenmark during one of his first training sessions in pole vaulting in Sollentuna athletics hall.
Swedish Athletics/Gustav Orbring
Over 8,000 participants from 111 countries are on hand to compete in the Veteran World Championships in Athletics in Gothenburg. One of them is alpine legend Ingemar Stenmark, 68, who is currently chasing gold in the pole vault.
It was last autumn that Ingemar Stenmark suddenly appeared in Sollentuna Athletics Hall. It turned out that he had tried pole vaulting with a wooden pole at home in Tärnaby when he was little, and now he was eager to try it again.
– I jumped when I was little and have always been passionate about the sport. I’ve thought about trying it sometime and now someone said “why don’t you try it?”. So then I got to try it and thought it was great fun, said Ingemar Stenmark to SVT then.
After that, he has been training in Sollentuna regularly and in April he made his competitive debut in athletics, when he represented Turebergs FK and managed 2.70, which was Sweden’s annual best indoors in class M65.
66 Turebergare
Today he competes for Sweden in the veteran WC and we’ll see if a new medal can be added to the collection. In alpine skiing, Stenmark boasts, among other things, 86 World Cup victories, five WC golds and two Olympic golds.
In total, Turebergs FK has 66 competitors on site in Gothenburg. Already on the first day, they took home three gold medals. One of them was rescued by Jonas Asplund in pole vaulting in the M50 class.
Was thinking of making a Mondo
He broke a new championship record with 4.65 and won by a full 90 centimeter margin to second. Asplund also attempted the world record height of 4.76.
– I thought I would do like Mondo Duplantis and take all the heights in the first attempt and then finish with a world record, but I guess I was never really close, he says to friidrott.se.
Jonas Asplund is also the coach of Ingemar Stenmark, so now we can only hope that “Stenis” repeats his coach’s feat at Slottskogsvallen this afternoon. The pole vault competition for M65 starts at 16.10.
Veteran WC in Gothenburg
Runs 13–25 August.
The competition center is at Slottsskogsvallen. Other arenas are Ullevi and Björlandavallen.
Anyone over the age of 35 can join. The competition classes are from the age of 35 with five-year intervals. There are no qualification limits.
Source: Swedish athletics
