Photo finish in Athens 2004 Jolanda Čeplak (pronounciation) (born Jolanda Steblovnik, September 12, 1976) is a Slovenian middle distance athlete.
She was born in Celje, Slovenia and lived in Velenje until recently when she moved to Celje.
In her early career, Jolanda did not specialise, and ran at many distances, but has settled on the 800 m where she has found relative success on the IAAF Golden League circuit, despite having to compete against Maria Mutola, who went unbeaten at all major championships from 1999 until the 2004 Summer Olympics.
Her most successful season was 2002. On March 2 at the European indoor championship in Vienna she beat the local favourite Stephanie Graf and set the indoor world record 1:55.82. Same year at the European championship in Munich she clearly beat all rivals and became the European champion.
At the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Jolanda finished very strongly in the 800 m but could not quite catch winner Kelly Holmes and finished with exactly the same time as Hasna Benhassi. The photo-finish did not go Jolanda's way and Benhassi was given the silver medal and Jolanda bronze. One consolation though was that she had finished one place ahead of the great Mutola.
Her agent is a well known Austrian manager Robert Wagner.
Jolanda is married to Aleš Čeplak.
Major achievements
External link
Jolanda's Official Website (http://www.jolandaceplak.com/index.html)
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