It was a brilliant year for Croatian athlete Blanka Vlaisc, who established herself as one of the greatest athletes in the world. She was named both IAAF World Athlete of the Year and European Athlete of the Year and is the pre-eminent high jumper in the world.
In a glittering year of success, she won the European Championship gold medal in Barcelona in August to add to the gold medal she won at the World Indoor Championships in Doha in March. She also won 12 out of her 14 competitions during the year, including all seven Diamond League meetings at which her event was contested.
Her amazing 2010, which followed her gold medal winning performance in the World Championships in Berlin in 2009, completely wiped away the memory of her Olympic disappointment in 2008 in Beijing. Having fought back from a hyperthyroid condition, she lost the Olympic gold medal to Tia Hellebaut on countback because she had taken one more jump.
