Posted: December 3, 2004

Athletics: Carolina Kluft set for Reebok Boston Indoor Games

BOSTON, Massachusetts (Dec. 2) – Carolina Kluft, the 21-year-old from Sweden who earned the title of world’s Greatest All-Around Female Athlete by winning Olympic gold in the heptathlon, will compete at the 2005 Reebok Boston Indoor Games on Jan. 29, organizers announced today.

Making her Reebok Boston Indoor Games debut, Kluft is expected to compete in the long jump, which will be contested for the first time in the 10-year history of the meet. Like heptathlon legend Jackie Joyner-Kersee before her, Kluft is among the top long jumpers in the world, earning a bronze medal at the 2004 World Indoor Championships and qualifying for the Olympic long-jump final just four days after winning heptathlon gold in Athens.

Kluft, whose high energy and exuberance always gets the crowd involved, is a rising superstar who leaped to the front of the international stage when she won the 2003 World Championship, and has not lost a heptathlon in three years. In Athens, her seven-event score of 6,952 ranks her second all-time in the Olympics to only Joyner-Kersee.

So revered in her native Sweden that a national radio poll named her Swede of the Year, Kluft has also been honored by Crown Princess Victoria for her contributions to the nation. She was also named the 2003 Athlete of the Year by the European Athletic Association, and is one of the marquee track-and-field athletes sponsored by Reebok.

The 10th-annual Reebok Boston Indoor Games will be held at the Reggie Lewis Track & Athletic Center at Roxbury Community College, 1350 Tremont St., Boston, from 5:30 to 8 p.m., and will be broadcast on ESPN2 on Jan. 30. Tickets – with new, assigned seating along the homestretch – are available on-line at www.BostonIndoorGames.com or by calling 1-866-GOBIG05.