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| Swedish multi-event legend Carolina Kluft to retire from international athletics after the London 2012 Olympic Games. |
Sweden’s three-time World Championships heptathlon gold medallist and European record holder Carolina Klüft has announced that she will retire from international athletics after next year's 2012 Olympic Games in London.
Now 28, Klüft was the 2004 Olympic heptathlon champion but now primarily competes in the long jump after having decided to concentrate on individual events in early 2008.
'I've been competing in athletics for a long time even if I'm not so old. There are so many other things I want to do,' Klüft told the Swedish radio station Radiosporten.
In addition to her global title, Klüft also won the heptathlon gold medals at the 2002 and 2006 European Athletics Championships, the former when she was still only 19 and a junior, as well as the pentathlon at the 2005 and 2007 European Athletics Indoor Championships.
She was the European Athlete of the Year in 2003 and 2006, and is one of only three women - along with Yelena Isinbayeva and Blanka Vlašić - to win the award twice.
'Some people start to think of retirement when the motivation goes but I've always felt that I wanted to have a final destination, that now I'll do something different in life. I think I'm done with athletics,' added Klüft.
'I think I'll still be able to motivate people, but maybe in other fields and not in sport. I just don't find training fun at all. Thinking about what you must do to be as good as possible doesn't interest me.'
She is still one of only three athletes to exceed the heptathlon landmark of 7000 points and her European record of 7032 points was set when winning the third of her world titles in Osaka, Japan, four years ago.
Many people were then surprised when she walked away from the heptathlon just a few months later, arguably at the peak of her powers and just a few months before the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing - where she competed in the long jump and triple jump - but Klüft insisted she no longer enjoyed multi-events competitions, and also the training.
According to Radiosporten, Klüft is also apparently keen on securing a place in the Swedish women's 4x100m relay team at the World Championships and also the Olympics.
She may also compete for Sweden at the SPAR European Team Championships on home soil in Stockholm next month.
The 2011 SPAR European Team Championships will be held in the Swedish capital on 18-19 June.