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Blanka Vlai is a Croatian athlete who specialises in the high jump. She is the Croatian record holder in the event, and the former indoor World Champion. The daughter of Croatian decathlon record holder Joko Vlai, she was a talented junior athlete and attended her first Olympic Games in 2000 Sydney at the age of sixteen. She won the World Junior Championships in Athletics in both 2000 and 2002. Vlai broke her national record in 2004 and also won her first world senior medal at the World Indoor Championships that year. A hyperthyroid condition hindered her second Olympic appearance in Athens and she spent the 2005 season recuperating from surgery.

Blanka Vlai was born onNovember 1983 in Split, Croatia. From a young age, it was natural for her to be involved in sports her mother Venera was a seasoned amateur in basketball and cross country skiing while her father, Joko Vlai, was an international athlete who broke the Croatian record in the decathlon. Her father brought her to the track while he practised and she dreamed of becoming a professional sprinter. As she grew up she tried a number of sports but found that the high jump was particularly wellsuited to her tall and slender frame. Vlai shunned the idea of competing in more profitable sports, such as basketball, saying that she preferred the thrill of individual sports. She reached the international standard for a high jumper at an early age, setting a personal best of 1.80160metres at fifteen years of age and quickly improving to 1.93160m at sixteen.

Source: Wikipedia