As the BAUHAUS-galan meeting returns to Stockholm this Sunday, the spotlight won’t fall entirely on Sweden\u2019s athletics icons like Olympic gold medallists Armand Duplantis and Daniel St\u00e5hl.<\/p>\n\n
Home supporters also have a new of homegrown talent to get behind, led by high jump sensation Engla Nilsson and middle-distance breakthrough star Samuel Pihlstr\u00f6m\u2014two athletes embodying the bright future of Swedish athletics.<\/p>\n\n
For Nilsson, who has just turned 20, the past few months have transformed her from promising junior to international medal-winner.<\/p>\n\n
Her surprise bronze at the European Athletics Indoor Championships in March marked a stunning rise, one that included sharing the podium with high jump royalty such as Olympic champion and world record holder Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine and European silver medallist Angelica Topic of Serbia.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYeah, I feel like people expect me to jump much higher than I did before,\u201d Nilsson says ahead of her Diamond League debut on Sunday. \u201cBut I feel like that\u2019s one of the things that motivates me the most. So, I\u2019m quite motivated by people having high expectations on me. I know what I can do, and I just keep thinking about that.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
That self-belief was hard-won. Not long ago, Nilsson was one of many young athletes watching the likes of Mahuchikh on television. Suddenly, she was competing alongside them. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cActually, over half a year ago, I just watched them on TV thinking, \u2018Oh, one day I can be there.\u2019<\/em> But then it happened. It was weird. They were so normal\u2014just normal people in their lives. I don\u2019t know what I expected, but they were so kind to me. It was a wonderful feeling.\u201d <\/p>\n\n Beyond her podium finish, Nilsson also made headlines recently for something a little more unconventional, unofficially equalling the U20 world best in the standing high jump.<\/p>\n\n \u201cIt was just a fun thing. I haven\u2019t really practiced for it; I just do it as an exercise in training. Then we noticed I was pretty good at it, and we looked up the record\u2014it was 1.50m for 19-year-olds, and I jumped 1.47m in practice. So, we set up a real competition, and I did 1.45. But in training, I did 1.50m.\u201d<\/p>\n\n With expectations now elevated, Nilsson returns to home soil hoping to continue her upward trajectory in front of a supportive Swedish crowd.<\/p>\n\n Alongside her, Samuel Pihlstr\u00f6m is another young Swede stepping into the senior spotlight with increasing confidence. A former European Youth Orienteering Champion, Pihlstr\u00f6m made the decisive switch to track and field during the pandemic\u2014and has been climbing the ranks ever since. <\/p>\n\n \u201cYeah, I quit orienteering during the pandemic, in 2020, and then I never came back,\u201d he says. Thus far, he has enjoyed a superb year, setting new national records for the 1500m outdoors (3:30.87), 1500m indoors (3:35:47) and mile indoors (3:54.78). <\/p>\n\n \u201cI had a great indoor season, and the training went so well during the autumn, winter, and spring that my expectations were already high\u2014even on January 1st.\u201d<\/p>\n\n Those expectations proved well placed. Pihlstr\u00f6m\u2019s consistency and rapid improvement have earned him growing recognition in both the 800m and 1500m, especially after winning the double at Finnkamp, the hugely popular annual Sweden-Finland match in the same Stockholm Olympic Stadium two years ago\u2014a moment he still remembers fondly. <\/p>\n\n \u201cThat was a bit surprising for many people. But it was a good memory,\u201d he smiles.<\/p>\n\n As Sweden\u2019s premier athletics meeting beckons, both Nilsson and Pihlstr\u00f6m are no longer the surprise packages\u2014but are both ready for the spotlight and the ready to lead the next generation of Swedish talent. <\/p>\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the BAUHAUS-galan meeting returns to Stockholm this Sunday, the spotlight won’t fall...","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":2974,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-3011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stockholm-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3011"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3012,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3011\/revisions\/3012"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3011"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stockholm.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=3011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}