It was the Olympic, World, and European heptathlon champion as she has never appeared before, and Carolina Kluft was not happy. (Includes video)
It was the Olympic, World, and European heptathlon champion as she has never appeared before, and Carolina Kluft was not happy.
The promotional caricature cut-out through which her live head was to be projected yesterday would have been more appropriate on Blackpool's Golden Mile than at the headquarters of sportscotland.
That's where media had gathered to hear the Swede announce her participation at Grangemouth on July 1, by live video link from her home town of Vaxjo.
Her face on the screen would show through the hole in the cardboard as she announced that, having abandoned the heptathlon as undisputed World No 1, she is to long jump in the Bank of Scotland Cup in one of her final contests before the Beijing Olympics.
The cut-out was the brainchild of scottishathletics, the event promoters, and the caricature had been approved in advance by Kluft's father.
There seemed little prospect of the fun-loving Kluft taking offence. She appeared as a manga-style cartoon character in Japan last year where she retained the world title.
She is the least egotistical of athletes, famed for pulling faces before TV cameras when she competes.
Yet as soon as she saw the material on the link, the look on her face told all. She was horrified: "I don't think that looks so nice. I have to be honest. I don't think it's a nice picture of me. That's not me, a floozie with big boobs," she pleaded. "I don't want to be a pain but I don't feel comfortable with that picture."
Scottishathletics chief executive Geoff Wightman failed to persuade her otherwise, and immediately agreed to remove the material before the interview went ahead - but too late for The Herald's sharp-fingered photographer, Gordon Terris.
It was hardly what Kluft could have expected from a country which she has taken so much to her heart that she married here in secret last September, to confuse the Swedish media.
She married pole vaulter Patrick Kristiansson at Crichton Parish Church in Midlothian, and their reception was at Charleton House, near St Andrews.
The proprietor, Baron St Clair Bonde, made her a gift of membership of the exclusive golf club. It was their only wedding present. Kluft asked that guests donate to charity.
Long before she was a celebrity athlete she was sending money monthly to foster a child in Africa, and has subsequently refused to pose for pictures with the children who are beneficiaries.
Kluft graciously continued with a forthright and revealing interview.
The bank's head of sponsorship, Karen Tighe, attended the conference, but declined to comment. They are the major sponsors of scottishathletics, and Kluft has agreed to do a clinic with their development squad athletes the day before the Grangemouth event.
