Carolina Kluft

There is an old cliche in track and field: those who compete in either the men's 10-event decathlon or the women's seven-discipline heptathlon are jacks-of-all-trades, but masters of none. Carolina Kluft was the exception. Until last year, when she switched to long jump, the Swede was the Olympic, World and European heptathlon champion at just 23 years of age, and, by virtue, the top female athlete on the planet. She is only the third heptathlete in history to top 7,000 points ( a total based on performance, and calculated using separate formulas for running and field events), and is also the best long jumper in Sweden and 200 metre runner, as well as rated third best at high jump and in the sprint hurdles. She was also extremely competitive at the remaining three events in the heptathlon: shot put, javelin and 800 metres. "I used to love playing every sport as a kid," Kluft explains. "I guess that's why I ended up becoming a heptathlete. That way I could still play at all kinds of different things."

Kluft was blessed with incredible natural talent. But she also worked devilishly hard to maintain her position, as any champion does. There difference, however, was that she required unprecedented commitment and dedication. When her season came to an end she took four weeks off to unwind, rest and prepare for the start of a fresh, annual cycle. "The rest was between mid-September and mid-October, she says. "I chilled out, rested, saw my friends and family, and did all the things I was unable to do when I was training."

Before she knew it, however, she was back, with the first two weeks always the most intense. "In the autumn into early winter it was very physical and non-specific," Kluft explains. "I worked on general speed, strength and stamina. The period between October and December was the most important period of the whole year. This was when I was putting gas in my tank to be used not only in the summer, but also in the spring during the indoor season. This lasted from January until March, and then in April, I'd have another burst of general stamina and strength-gaining training."

A typical day for Kluft spanned out like this as she worked out in her home town of Vaxjo in southern Sweden. Her morning began with work on the shot put inside a sports hall. She would putt the shot for 90 minutes, screaming with either effort or frustration if she was dissatisfied, yelping with delight when her put met her expectations. Then it was on to the gym where she performed a series of exercises for over an hour, including weights, sit-ups and various other body conditioning exercises. "I concentrated on the explosive in the gym, especially when it came to weights. Many of my events in the heptahlon - such as the long jump, high jump, shot and javelin - relied on a sudden explosion of power. That's why I did only three or four squats, for example. It didn't take long, and it may not seem much, but the weights were at my maximum, and so I had to produce my explosive best. If I did it eight or ten times each go, I would be all muscle but unable to use it."

After lunch Kluft would make the short journey from the Vaxjo sports hall to the athletics ground, which had an outdoor track and an eight-lane sprint track indoors. For the next hour she would focus on the hurdles, bounding over a set of eight like a kangaroo, and working on her hamstrings and calves, where all the strain was felt. Finally, five hours later, she ended her day after a stamina-sapping series of 16 back-to-back 200 metre sprints. "Don't forget, you needed to be very strong to maintain the high standards at the podium end of the heptathlon. It is two long days and seven competitions in one. That's why I often competed in single events at athletics meetings. Of course, I wanted to win them, but they were designed mainly to sharpen up that particular discipline for when I competed in the heptathlon."

Kluft recognised that whilst she needed everything to perform in her event, she also needed to have the right balance. "My best and most natural events were the long jump and high jump, and also the sprint events, and that meant I needed to work more on the others. The danger, though, was to concentrate too much on them to the detriment of the others. Too much upper body weight, for example, may have helped my throwing, but it would have affected my jumping. I tended to focus more on technique than sheer power, and therefore spent a lot of time working on the technical sides of my events."

She also had a set pattern. "Six days a week, every week of the year except for my month off," Kluft reveals. "One day was two and a half hours, the other five were five hours. I always had Sundays off in order to recover, and Saturdays tended to be my long-jumping days. I ran 400-metre laps carrying small weights in both my hands. In fact, the only event I did not specifically train for was the 800 metres, but that's because all the training for the six other events was more than enough to see me around two laps." Besides, by the 800 metres, the final event of seven, Kluft usually had the heptathlon wrapped up.

After all this hard work must come hard rest. "I never used to be able to stop, but my coach forced me to rest and later I could really see the benefits from it. Apart from ensuring I kept my strength and fitness, it was also to avoid injuries. Heptathletes, because of the sport's contradictory demands, are often injury-ridden, but you have to listen to your own body, and you must train also to avoid injuries. Much of my training regime was prevention-based. So I worked a lot on my hamstrings, for example, or my wrists. This was not to improve my times or marks, but simply to condition my body."

Can such a supreme athlete give any tips to ordinary punters who like their athletics? "Try and find an exercise that suits you best," says Kluft. "I find that you can never go far wrong in any sport if you are a good runner. Running is great for stamina and for strength in so many parts of your body. It is the very centre of most sports. But, most important of all, you've got to enjoy it. if you don't, then stop and find another sport to try out."

Or seven, in Kluft's case!