Two-time world indoor long jump champion Ivana Spanovic-Vuleta has announced the end of her competitive career. The 32-year-old Serbian, who also has an Olympic bronze medal from Rio de Janeiro 2016, finished seventh in the final of the World Athletics Championships in Eugene today with 6.84m (2.1m/s) and failed to add a third outdoor world championship medal to her collection of honors. She has two bronze medals from the championships in Moscow 2013 and Beijing 2015.
“Long story short. I don’t know how many need to hear this but… Chasing results, so much goes off your radar. I don’t accept the fact that with your head bowed you should leave the strikes, worried about the opinions and comments of others, while forgetting that the only important thing was the effort, your path and your fight that you bring to the fighters, no one else. Undeniably, I am bringing my long career to an end, accepting all the good and bad days (there are bad days in the year, though, many more) and I do not perceive this day as a failure because it is not, but as a man, a bitter impression is created by difficult conversations with girls with to which I jump for years, all tears, insolent words and the hugs we share with Chris because you can’t show that it breaks you after all. Because you don’t have the right to have a bad day, you have no right to stop, you can’t be weak. However, I try to encourage them that the sport is much more than medals, at least partly in my example, as much as I can. Some call to feel the sweetness of the same, some never, but the stake is the same – they give everything they have. Your time, your health, physically and mentally, an uncompromising sacrifice following your dreams. This is just another one of those days that will pass like any other”, wrote Ivana Spanovic-Vuleta on her Facebook page.
The Serbian has been one of the most loved athletes in the long jump sector over the years. Her successful career started already in 2007 when at the European Youth Festival in Belgrade she won silver in the long jump and bronze in the 4×100 m. In the same year, she was second at the World Cadet Championships in Ostrava, and her rivalry with Darya Klishina more girls is proverbial. In 2008, Ivana Spanovic-Vuleta became the girls’ world champion in Bydgoszcz. In 2009, she was the champion of the Universiade in Belgrade. 2011 was second at the European Under-23 Championships in Ostrava.
And since 2013, she has already won her first honors at major forums for women – bronze at the World Outdoor Championships in Moscow. In 2014, she was third at the World Indoor Championships in Sopot, and in the summer she won a silver medal at the European Championships in Zurich. The season 2015 was also a successful year for the Serbian woman – she first won the gold at the continental indoor forum in Prague, and in the summer she was third again at the World Outdoor Championships in Beijing.
In the winter of 2016, she finished second at the World Athletics Championships in Portland, and in the summer she won the European title in Amsterdam and was third at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. In 2017, she won the European indoor title in Belgrade in front of his home crowd with a new national record of 7.24m. 2018 is again “golden” for Vuletta, who wins her first indoor world title in Birmingham. The following year, the gold was at the continental forum under a roof in Glasgow, her third in a row from these championships.
This year, Ivana Spanovic-Vuleta triumphed again in a big forum in front of a home crowd, winning the world indoor title in Belgrade. She also has three diamond trophies in her collection – in 2016, 2017 and 2021.