Just three months after her upset victory in Beijing, Olympic high jump champion Tia Hellebaut of Belgium has announced her retirement.
“I won Olympic gold and won the world indoor championship this year,” Hellebaut, 30, said. “Could I ask for more?”
Assisting with her decision to hang up her spikes was her announcement that she’s expecting her first child with longtime coach and partner, Wim Vandeven, in July.
Since emerging among the world’s elite in 2005, Hellebaut displayed an uncanny ability to produce when it mattered most. At the 2006 European Championships in Gothenburg, Sweden, Hellebaut beat back one of the strongest fields ever assembled to claim the continental high jump title with a 2.03m leap, the second national record of the day, and the sixth she set that summer.
The following winter she debuted with her first two-meter jump indoors and later went on to dominate the European Indoor Championships in Birmingham, England, again against a strong field. Hellebaut produced just one miss during that competition, before cruising through first attempt clearances at 2.01m, 2.03m and a season-leading 2.05m (6-8 ¾).
An injury in 2007 largely relegated her to the role of spectator at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka - she was a distant 14th in Osaka – but this year bounced back with force and eloquence. Largely overshadowed by Croatia’s world champion Blanka Vlasic in the lead-up to Beijing, Hellebaut took command of the proceedings at the Bird’s Nest Stadium with a first attempt clearance at 2.05m (6-8 ¾), another national record. Vlasic didn’t clear until her second try, giving Hellebaut the gold.
But well before her sixth place finish in the high jump at the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki, Hellebaut was known primarily as a multi-eventer. Here too she excelled. Fourth in the heptathlon at the 2004 World Indoor Championships, she claimed the world indoor title in Valencia, Spain, earlier this year.
With her 2.05m indoor career best from Birmingham, Hellebaut will retire in a tie with Vlasic as the fourth best jumper in history indoors, while her 2.05m effort in Beijing ties her with four others as the seventh highest outdoors. In 2007, she tallied 4877 points in the pentathlon at the Belgian National Indoor Championships, giving her a firm hold on the No. 4. spot all-time.
Hellebaut will remain involved in the sport. She'll join Golazo Sports, her manager's Bob Verbeeck's firm, as an account manager and will be involved with the organization of the indoor meet in Gent and Ivo van Damme Memorial, the Brussels lef of the AF Golden League.
[Photo NOTE: Tia Hellebaut speaking with reporters prior to the Weltklasse Golden League Meet in Zurich, 28-Aug, 2008. Credit: Bob Ramsak/TRACK PROFILE Report]
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