After the bottom button, Engla Nilsson enjoys competing
On one short wall in athletics house in Gothenburg, big pictures hang on some of Örgryte IS’s most successful athlete: Patrik Sjöberg, Christian Olsson, Dan Waern, Arne Andersson, Erik Lemming.
No women. Engla Nilsson says she should try to change that.
On today’s training program Standing hedge and some short exercises in the gym. Then she will help with handing out license plates to the participants in a local exercise race.
– Everyone in the club should do 30 hours of volunteering per year so that we get the budget together. I worked at the Gothenburg Shipyard too, she says.
An EM medalist also has to pull his straw to the stack. The bronze in the Apeldoorn came as a shock, both for the surroundings and for herself. Prior to the indoor European Championships, she was ranked 36th and it was only after several better ranked jumpers chose to give up the championship that she became one of the 18 in the starting field.
The goal was to get to the final and well there her boyfriend came with the call that was quoted in many tribute articles: « Try not to come last in the final. »
After raising her personal record by five centimeters to 1.92 during qualifying and final, she stood on the podium and celebrated together with the world record holder and gold medalist Jaroslava Mahutjich from Ukraine, who sprinkled praise over the Swedish newcomer.
It’s one of the most Sensational medals in Swedish athletics history and Nilsson had not expected when she stayed at 1.48 four years earlier and had to settle for a tenth place at the Youth Championship.
She says that at a young age she often had a hard time with the mental on the competitions. After the bottom button in Norrköping, she took the help of a sports psychologist and turned the weakness into a strength.
« This girl has no nerves, » said the union captain Kajsa Bergqvist after the European bronze.
– High jump is 50 percent mentally. Many people have anxiety throughout the competition, but I enjoy competing and « pushed » off when others jump well, like at the European Championships, says Nilsson.
So how has she become a « girl without nerves »?
– For me, it just has to accept everything I think. If I am really nervous, then I am. It’s just to continue, do everything as usual, not cave in their thoughts and aging things.
She really wanted to Become a gymnast, but the queue for the club at home in Kungälv was too long, so seven years old she accompanied her friends to an athletics training instead. Five years ago, she started competing for ÖIS, where Per Tedenrud is now her coach.
The comparisons with the league captain Bergqvist are already many, partly because Sweden’s foremost female high jumpers of all time measure 175 centimeters against Nilsson’s 174 – short compared to many other jumpers in the world elite. Bergqvist, who took 1.93 as a 19-year-old, was also a prominent competition man.
Nilsson, who just turned 20 and was only one year when Bergqvist in 2006 beat the world record indoors with 2.08, is already a little tired of being called the « new Kajsa ».
– The media would like to compare us, but you have to understand that we are different people and that each trip is individual, she says and at the same time tells that she received some advice from Kajsa.
The resurrection after the European bronze does not disturb her and she also does not feel pressured by the expectations created by the medal.
– Everyone who knows athletics knows that the road upwards is not nail -biting – and what those who cannot athletics think I do not care. I just do my thing, she says.
Seasonal debut in Poland Last weekend showed that the European effort was no coincidence. Nilsson won the competition, took all heights in the first attempt and noted personal record with 1.93 – a result that places her in ninth place in the Swedish statistics through the ages. Of peers, she only has Serbian Angelina Topic (1.96) ahead of her at the World Year Best List.
Nilsson had good attempts at 1.95 in Poland and says that height is not far away. The next chance will be in Hengelo on Monday. Then the Bauhaus gala is waiting at Stockholm Stadium on June 15.
-It will be fun with Diamond League debut, says Nilsson, who can be relevant for the big galas in Lausanne and Paris in a good result.
One of the big goals of the year is the U23 European Championships in Bergen July 17-20, where she thinks she can join in and fight for the medals. Then a World Cup in Tokyo in September. The qualifying limit is 1.97. If she does not solve that height, she can qualify via ranking points.
– I really want to get to Tokyo. U23 and the World Cup are my two big goals this year, she says.
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