Sarah Sjöström

Sarah Fredrika Sjöström ( born August 17, 1993, Salem) is a Swedish swimmer. It is considered a prodigy of Swedish Swimming Sports and celebrated their biggest success in the FINA World Swimming Championships in Rome in 2009, where they won the gold medal in the 100 - meter butterfly route as the first Scandinavian swimmer. This success could be repeated at the 2013 World Swimming Championships.

Career

Sarah Sjöström was born as the second of four children. With the swimming they came at the age of nine years by a friend in touch after her family had moved from the Stockholm district Västertorp by hands. In the 5th grade, they speculated to end their sporting careers, ere einstellten success at junior level. After victories at junior championships and a surprising medal win at the Swedish Swimming Championships coach Thomas Jansson became aware of Sjöström. In 2007 she won the European Youth Olympic Festival a complete set of medals and then moved to the seniors.

The breakthrough in the seniors succeeded Sjöström already at the European Swimming Championships 2008 in Eindhoven, Netherlands. In the semifinals, the 100m butterfly placed the 14 -year-old with a time of 58.38 s the Swedish national record by Anna- Karin Kammerling, and secured the final victory against the almost eight years older Dutch Inge Dekker. With their European title Sjöström was the youngest Swedish athlete, who won an Olympic competition in international championships. Then, the student received a nomination in the Swedish squad for the Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, but where they could not build on the previous success. In the heats Sjöström took the 100m butterfly ( 59.08 sec) and 100m backstroke ( 1:02,38 min) only a 27th or 29th place, while the Swedish medley relay in the final, where they are used as the starting swimmer was, was disqualified after a change of error. In December 2008, she participated in the Short Course Championships in Rijeka, where she the silver medal behind the Netherlands won the Swedish freestyle relay and the finals of the distances 50 m butterfly (7th, 26.10 s ), 100m freestyle (6th Place; 53.45 s ) and 100m butterfly (6th place; 57.40 s ) attained, but without winning a single medal.

Despite the defeat at the Olympic Games themselves Sjöström sat 2009 in Swedish Sports Gala ( Svenska idrottsgalan ) among others against the hockey player Fabian Brunnström and the cross-country skier Emil Jönsson and won the Newcomer Award. In the same year celebrated the 15 - year-old who is one of the American Michael Phelps to their models, its biggest sporting success. At the FINA World Swimming Championships in Rome Sjostrom the title over the 100 - meter butterfly Distance secured as first Scandinavian swimmer in the world record time of 56.06 s and referred the Australian Jessicah Schipper and Jiao Liuyang to the Chinese places. Already in the run- and semi-finals they had undercut the Swedish record and the more than eight -year-old world record of Dutch Inge de Bruijn. About 50 m butterfly occupied Sjöström in time of 25.66 seconds a sixth place, with Sweden's 4 × 100 m freestyle relay in fifth place.

Sarah Sjöström, compared by the German media with the popular athlete Carolina Kluft, lives with her family in hands, where she also attended school. She is a member of the swimming club Södertörns Simsällskap and is currently coached by Carl Jenner. At a height of 1.81 m her competition weight is 70 kg.

Personal Best

Long course (50 m)

WR = World Record; NR = new Swedish record

Short course (25 m)

NR = new Swedish record