Cool Kluft, calm Kallur steal the show - Euro Indoors, Day 1, PM – WOMEN

After a dramatic downtothewire battle with Birmingham’s own Kelly Sotherton, Carolina Kluft yet again illustrated why she is considered the finest women’s all-around athlete in the world after her thrilling victory in the Pentathlon to cap the first day of the 29th European Indoor Athletics Championships.

Kluft: 'I couldn't have done it without Kelly'

“What a great competition to win,” said Kluft, who tallied 4944 points to solidify her No. 3 position on the event’s all-time list. “It was very hard right from the start and Kelly pushed all the time in every event. It definitely was very, very tough. I couldn’t have done it without Kelly.”

Kluft, second after the day’s first three events, wrestled the lead from Sotherton during the Long Jump, where she reached a season’s best 6.59 with her final effort. For her part Sotherton jumped 6.51, also on her final attempt, to enter the final event just 24 points behind Kluft’s 4023 point tally. With a season’s best 6.50 leap of her own, Karin Ruckstuhl moved into third, another 68 back.

To score the upset over her long-time rival, Sotherton needed to beat the Swede by approximately 1.6 seconds in the 800 metres, and despite churning to a personal best 2:12.54 victory, Kluft simply responded as she knows best: with a personal best 2:13.04 of her own to win by just 17 points to become the first two-time winner of the event at the European Indoor Championships.

But Sotherton, who also finished second behind Kluft two years ago, made significant strides in narrowing the gap Kluft had become accustomed to. Her 4927 point tally elevated Sotherton to No. 4 all-time, and shattered her own Commonwealth record by nearly 200 points.

“It would have been great to have won,” Sotherton told the appreciative crowd, “But I have the Olympic and World champion and the best-ever woman athlete to compete against.”

After a strong late afternoon and evening, Ruckstuhl held on to third to claim the bronze with a 4801 tally, a Dutch national record which landed her on the verge of the event’s top-10. Lithuanian Austra Skujyte edged Ukraine’s Nataliya Dobrynska by just a single point, 4740 to 4739, to take fourth, national records for both. British newcomer Jessica Ennis, was sixth with a 4716 tally, adding more than 300 points to her career best.

Bob Ramsak for the IAAF

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