All the heights she cleared in her second attempts (188, 193 and 197 cm), while it was apparent she was struggling with an injury
In her fourth Olympics performance, Croatian athlete Blanka Vlašić won her second Olympic medal. Jumping over the height of 1.97 metres Blanka came in third place, the Croatian Athletics Federation reported on August 21, 2016. All the heights she cleared in her second attempts (188, 193 and 197 cm), while it was apparent she was struggling with an injury. Only four jumpers cleared the 1.97 m height, none of them able to go over 2 m. The gold went to Spanish jumper Ruth Beitia who cleared the heights in her first attempts and the silver to Bulgarian Mirela Demireva, who had one failed attempt at the starting height of 1.88 m. Blanka was the last Croatian athlete to compete in the 31st Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
Blanka had her first appearance at the Olympic games in Sydney in 2000 when she was just shy of 17 years of age. She didn’t make it past the qualifications then. In Athens in 2004 she placed 11th in the finals, while winning the silver medal in Beijing in 2008, only to miss the London Olympics due to injury four years ago.
Blanka’s bronze is the third medal in Rio for Croatian athletics after the gold by Sandra Perković in discus and Sara Kolak in javelin, making these Olympics the most successful ones for Croatia so far. The finals in shot put by Stipe Žunić must also be mentioned here. With these three medals Croatia is in seventh place in the athletics category, while the total number of medals in these Olympics for Croatian sports is 10.
