Kentucky star lost senior season to COVID. Now, she’s in Sweden aiming for Olympics.
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Editor’s Note: This article is the latest in a series about athletes with Kentucky ties preparing for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo after this year’s Games were postponed till next year.
For Ellen Ekholm, Sweden’s Olympic qualification standard is a high bar to reach. But the former University of Kentucky high jumper is up for the challenge.
Ekholm made waves last winter during track and field’s indoor season, going undefeated in the six meets of her senior year and winning her first Southeastern Conference title. She was poised to score points for Kentucky in the NCAA indoor meet, with many expecting her to win the event.
Unfortunately, Ekholm never got the chance to prove them right. The squad was in Albuquerque, N.M., finishing its pre-NCAA meet, when athletes got the news that the rest of the season had been canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Ekholm said that she doesn’t feel like she got to finish what she started, given the season’s sudden ending.
“I was so ready to just go in there and win,” she said. “And I know it would have been hard because these girls are crazy and they jump crazy high, they’re great. But I was like, there’s no other option but to win.”
Back home in Sweden, Ekholm said she is searching for that confidence again.
She is training with Ullevi FK, a local track club, under the guidance of both her longtime Swedish coach, Peter Liberg, and UK jumps coach Kris Grimes. While she said making the decision not to return to Lexington to train in the fall was difficult, she was excited to return to her home in Sweden to be with her family and watch her nieces and nephews grow up.
“I had such a hard time wrapping my mind around another year in America,” Ekholm said. “I went into this last year thinking like, ‘Oh, it’s only a year left, then I’m gonna live in Sweden again.’ … And then now it’s like, can I mentally do it? Can I reset?”
She hasn’t yet ruled out returning to UK for the spring season. If there is a 2021 outdoor campaign, the NCAA has presented the seniors of 2020 a bonus season of collegiate eligibility to participate in it.
Whether or not she returns to UK, the Tokyo Olympics — postponed from this year to next — remain her primary target.
‘It takes some time’
The transition back home hasn’t been completely smooth. Ekholm said she had been struggling with her jump approach, typically long and fast, for several months, before realizing that she wasn’t actually doing anything wrong. The track in Sweden was just softer than what she was used to in America, making it harder for her to reach the same speed.
“I think I’ve been a little confused,” she said. “It takes some time to get back into it.”
Ekholm said she hopes the extra year of pre-Olympics training will give her time to adjust. In Sweden, there isn’t an official Olympic Trials competition, but rather specific qualification standards athletes can reach throughout the year at any meet.
Lars Markusson, media manager of the Swedish Olympic Committee, said that this year’s high jump qualifying standard is 1.96 meters. In order to compete for Sweden, athletes should clear that height and “prove in international competition they can compete for a top-eight finish.”
So far, only one Swedish high jumper, Erika Kinsey, has cleared that standard, but Markusson said that no one will be officially selected for the team until 2021.
Ekholm said that, typically, Sweden has a designated number of open slots for the sport, and if the height is so difficult that not enough people clear it to fill the slots, athletes who haven’t cleared it could potentially still be invited to the Games.
“I have a hard time seeing all of those spots being filled by people actually clearing that high standard,” Ekholm said. “If I clear the standard, I don’t think there should be an issue with me being selected for the Swedish team, but obviously it’s not that easy.”
Ekholm is currently five centimeters — “quite a bit” — off the standard, she said. However, considering she improved by eight centimeters during the 2020 NCAA indoor season alone, she still has a good chance of making the team. The last day to be selected is June 29, 2021, according to the Swedish Olympic Committee website. The Tokyo Games are scheduled for July 23-Aug. 8, 2021.
COVID in Sweden
While track and field meets are still ongoing in Sweden, COVID-19 has had a drastic effect on their atmosphere. Meets are much smaller, with each event conducted at a separate time without overlaps or spectators. Ekholm has also been competing at meets in the same facility where she trains.
“It’s hard to channel that it’s a meet and not just practice,” she said. “That’s probably the biggest part that I’m struggling with … it takes longer to mentally get into it.”
Sweden never completely shut down because of COVID-19. Besides some initial travel restrictions and social distancing recommendations, Ekholm said the country elected to continue everything mostly “like normal.” While COVID deaths did spike when the virus got into nursing homes, they have declined to just a few per day.
Ekholm said that they are still being cautious: her training group is small and they try to practice outside when they can. And while she might still be adjusting mentally and physically to her new environment and circumstances, Ekholm isn’t counting herself out of the Olympics.
“I think this one extra year of it being postponed was to my benefit,” she said. “I can use that and work on what I need to work on and hopefully clear the standard.”