Today's Amsterdam Focus is with Ruth Beitia, a high jumper chasing a place in history.
When Ruth Beitia steps into the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam next week, she will be back on the stage where it all began.
While Spain’s defending high jump champion will be seeking a place in history as the first competitor, man or woman, to win this event three times at the European Athletics Championships, nostalgia will be in the air.
It was in 2001, as a 22-year-old, that Beitia won her first major gold medal at the European U23 Championships here in the Dutch capital.
Her triumph then arrived on countback with a clearance of 1.87m and since then her career has been a series of podiums, outstanding performances and defiance.
In the last four years, Beitia has been one of the most extraordinary stories in the sport.
Crowned European champion in Helsinki 2012, the Spanish star headed to the Olympic Games in London a few weeks later looking primed for a medal - before the agony of being so close, finishing fourth with 2.00m, the best she had jumped all year.
It was decision time.
Would she carry on or would she bow out?
The latter looked the likeliest as she slipped away from the sport…but it was not for long.
By the following winter, and just weeks before her 34th birthday, she returned to win gold at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Gothenburg and then the following year, clearing a height of 2.01m, she retained her high jump title at the European Athletics Championships in Zurich.
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Now in Amsterdam, she stands on the cusp of a brilliant landmark.
With her victory in Switzerland, Beitia matched the record of Romania’s Iolanda Balas who won this title in 1958 and 1962 and once more she just cannot be ruled out, even if there are jumpers who have gone higher than her this summer.
Beitia is the only woman in the field to have experienced breaking two metres.
Her personal best of 2.02m is from nearly nine years ago and now she sits joint-ninth on the European rankings with 1.93m from Stockholm last month.
It is four centimetres shy of three of her main rivals in Amsterdam, Bulgaria’s Mirela Demireva, Italy’s Desirée Rossit and Ukraine’s Oksana Okuneva, but Beitia has such an ability to strike at a championship.
Such has been her presence on the global stage that she is now celebrating 20 years competing at major events since the 1996 World Junior Championships in Atlanta and last March in Portland, she was still winning medals with silver at the IAAF World Indoor Championships.
Trivia: Ruth Beitia will be representing Spain internationally for the 61st time in Amsterdam. pic.twitter.com/DKnzLlFZhz
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) June 28, 2016
Amsterdam will be her sixth Europeans and her performances in the finals make interesting reading as each time she has jumped higher, from her 1.85m in Munich 2002 to her 2.01m in Zurich 2014.
The championship record of 2.03m is held jointly by Belgium’s Tia Hellebaut, Bulgaria’s Venelina Veneva-Mtaeeva and Crotian Blanka Vlasic and that, with gold, could be just another incentive driving Beitia to success again.
RUTH BEITIA AT THE EUROPEAN ATHLETICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
MUNICH 2002
High Jump final (11 August)
1. Kasja Bergqvist (SWE) 1.98m
11. Ruth Beitia 1.85m
GOTHENBURG 2006
High Jump final (11 August)
1. Tia Hellebaut (BEL) 2.03m
9. Ruth Beitia 1.92m
BARCELONA 2010
High Jump final (1 August)
1. Blanka Vlasic (CRO) 2.03m
6=. Ruth Beitia 1.95m
HELSINKI 2012
High Jump final (28 June)
1. Ruth Beitia 1.97m
2. Tonje Angelsen (NOR) 1.97m
3=. Irina Gordeyeva (RUS), Emma Green (SWE), Olena Holosha (UKR) 1.92m
ZURICH 2014
High Jump final (Aug 17)
1. Ruth Beitia 2.01m
2. Mariya Kuchina (RUS) 1.99m
3. Ana Simic (CRO) 1.99m