|
Register Now!
|
|
Register now for vtap for the fastest and easiest way to watch web video on your mobile device!
|
|
Tia Hellebaut (born February 16 1978 in Antwerp, Belgium) is a Belgian athlete who used to be active in the heptathlon but now specializes in the high jump event.
Hellebaut is being trained by her partner, Wim Vandeven, at her club, Atletica 84. She was a professional athlete with Atletiek Vlaanderen in the period from 2001 to October 2005. From November 1, 2006 she again became a professional athlete, this time at Bloso. Currently she lives in Tessenderlo.
At the 2006 European Championships and 2007 Indoor European Championships she won the gold medal in high jump. The 2006 victory became especially notable, when just a couple of minutes later her close friend and compatriot Kim Gevaert completed a historical sprint double. The images of both athletes celebrating their victory together, wrapped in a national flag, became part of Belgian sports history.
She holds the Belgian records for heptathlon, indoor pentathlon, and high jump, both indoors and outdoors.
In 2007 she set the fourth best pentathlon score of all time, but chose not to contest the European Indoor Championships because of illness, choosing instead to compete only in the high jump, which she later won. Most of the remainder of her 2007 high jump season was hampered by an ankle injury.
A shoulder injury, which makes it difficult for her to throw the javelin has meant that it is unlikely she will ever again contest a heptathlon.
For the 2008 indoor season, Hellebaut returned her focus to multi-events and became world champion of pentathlon at the World Indoor Championships in Valencia, where she set a secord for the best high jump result in a women's multi-event competition, clearing 1.99 m.





