Sweden's Carolina Kluft cemented her position as the best all-round female athlete of her generation when she clinched an unprecedented third successive world heptathlon title with a personal best tally on Sunday.
The 24-year-old Olympic champion produced her best performances of the season in six of the seven events for a total of 7,032 points to remain unbeaten in the event since 2002.
Kluft's time of 2:12.56 in the final 800 metres also gave her the European record, beating Russian Larisa Nikitina's 7,007 from 1989, and she became the only woman apart from world record holder Jackie Joyner-Kersee to pass 7,000 points more than once.
‘This is one of the highlights of my career,’ Kluft told reporters, adding that she would ‘hopefully’ be in Beijing for her Olympic title defence next year.
‘It's been tough, it's been a major pressure on me. I'm happy to put it all together and get a great result .... beating my personal best was one of my biggest motivations.’
She flopped to the ground after finishing the two-lap race before accepting the congratulations of her rivals as she waited for the final calculation of her points total.
Once the magic number was flashed across the big screen, she leapt to her feet and led the entire heptathlon field on a lap of honour, bounding across a hurdle along the way.
Ukraine's Lyudmyla Blonska finished second with 6,832 points and Kelly Sotherton grabbed Britain's first medal of the championships with 6,510 points for bronze.
Sotherton and compatriot Jessica Ennis finished second and first ahead of Kluft in the final 800 metres, catapulting both above Lithuania's Austra Skujyte into third and fourth places.
‘I didn't think 7,000 points would be possible this weekend,’ said Sotherton. ‘I am just proud to have been part of the competition.’
After a championship and personal best of 1.95 metres in the high jump as well as a personal best in the 100m hurdles on Saturday, Kluft settled for beating her 2007 times on Sunday.
A javelin throw of 47.98 in the penultimate event put her on track to beat her previous best total of 7,001, with which she won her first world title in Paris in 2003.
The exertion of her celebration of another 821 points brought her up short clutching her side. Although she declined her third throw, she looked untroubled during the 800m, the only event in which she failed to put in her best performance of the season.
Joyner-Kersee won the world title in 1987 and 1993 but was robbed of a hat-trick by a pulled hamstring at the 1991 championships. Her world record points total is 7,291.
