Erika Kinsey

Wiklund was born in Nälden on 10 March 1988.[1] She took up sports as a child, playing ice hockey and association football in addition to competing in athletics; she did not start concentrating on the high jump until she was 14.[2] She was a leading age group jumper, clearing 1.86 m in 2004; the jump ranked her fourth on the world youth list that year, and second among athletes born in 1988 or later.[3][4] In the following years her development stagnated, and she did not improve her personal best again until the 2007 indoor season; she placed fifth at the 2005 World Youth Championships and eighth at the 2006 World Junior Championships.[3][5] In addition to the high jump, she occasionally competed in the long jump; she won both events at the 2005 Finland-Sweden youth international.[1][5]

Wiklund won gold in the high jump at the 2007 European Junior Championships in Hengelo. In a very close competition, the top four all cleared 1.82 m; Wiklund later said she did not realize she had won on countback until a photographer told her.[1] Wiklund improved her personal best to 1.91 m in 2008, but concentrating on athletics exhausted her mentally; she dropped the sport in 2009 and moved to Norway, where her brother lived, taking up ice hockey again.[6][7] She had a brief comeback in 2011, winning bronze with a jump of 1.82 m at the Swedish championships.[5][8]

In 2013 Wiklund decided to make a second, more serious comeback; she resumed high jumping in 2014, now as a student at the University of Central Missouri.[8] In the summer of 2014 she married Daniel Kinsey, an American, and changed her name to Erika Kinsey.[1][6] She attempted to qualify for the 2014 European Championships in Zürich, but failed to reach the qualifying standard of 1.90 m; she had a season best of 1.88 m both indoors and outdoors.[5][6]

Kinsey's results improved in 2015; she was NCAA Division II champion in the high jump both indoors and outdoors, and in the triple jump indoors, helping the Central Missouri Jennies win their first team titles.[5][9] She unexpectedly cleared 1.97 m at the European Team Championships in Cheboksary, improving her personal best from the MIAA outdoor championships by five centimetres; the jump moved her to third on the Swedish all-time list (behind Kajsa Bergqvist and Emma Green), and exceeded the qualifying standard for the 2015 World Championships in Beijing.[5][7] She debuted in the IAAF Diamond League in July 2015 in Lausanne, jumping 1.94 m and placing third.[10]

• Erika Kinsey at World Athletics