Blanka Vlasic elegantly folds her long limbs and leans forward in a confessional manner. We are having a private conversation at a drinks reception, but a TV camera starts filming anyway and several people crowd around, staring. Vlasic seems to have that effect on people. It is not just her height, 6ft 4in, that turns heads when she walks into a room. Vlasic, with her aquamarine eyes, pouty lips and an unusual, brooding beauty, has an aura about her.
Back home in her native Croatia, every development in her life makes the newspapers – a new hairstyle, a new outfit, a new boyfriend. Sure, her career achievements are staggering and in more than a decade of competition Vlasic, the world's best female high jumper, has won almost everything going: two world titles outdoors, two more indoors, an Olympic silver medal, silver and bronze at the World Indoors, and two junior world titles. All that remains is a European title tomorrow evening in Barcelona, an Olympic title in 2012 and, surely, a world record to better that of Bulgaria's Stefka Kostadinova, set long ago in 1987.
What makes Vlasic so exciting is that she is the first high jumper to get anywhere near Kostadinova's record. With a personal best of 2.08, she is within a centimetre of the 23‑year‑old mark. That is special enough in her own event, but across the 10 individual women's world records in varying disciplines that still stand from the 1980s – a period when systematic drugs testing had not yet been introduced – Vlasic is the only contender in the last two decades to have come so close to setting a new standard. Even the remarkable Carolina Kluft could not get within the same ball park points tally as Jackie Joyner Kersee's 1988 heptathlon record.
The fascination with her stretches way beyond her quest for podium places. Like a Paris Hilton or a Lindsay Lohan, Vlasic has grown up in the media spotlight having competed in her first Olympic Games aged 16, and like those Hollywood names associated with glamour, allure and mischief, Vlasic has had her own series of scandals. "They like to see me like a bad girl," says Vlasic. From a series of leaked topless photos on a wild night out some years ago to a penchant for clubbing and, most recently, a case of mistaken identity in a sex tape, there have been many dramas along the way.
On the whole, she says, the attention is positive. When Vlasic missed gold at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing the Croatian press ran sympathetic headlines. But the paparazzi happily stalk her home if she has a new partner.
"About two years ago, before a major competition, I broke up with my boyfriend and I had a press conference to do so I said: 'OK, let's get this over with: I broke up with my boyfriend, I just want to say this, it was a good run but now we're separated and this will not interfere with my jumping. This is everything I'm going to say.' When you say it like this they don't have the urge to go and find something they think you're hiding. For me the most important thing is to avoid that element of surprise, you know some day you open the newspapers and you will see, oh they found out …"
She pauses. "There was some bad stuff. I don't know if … It didn't go outside of Croatia I don't think." She means the story about the sex tape – supposedly old footage of Vlasic and a boyfriend doing a Paris Hilton – that appeared all over the internet and on the front pages of Croatian newspapers earlier this year. She sighs.
"It was two days before the World Indoors in Doha [that I found out]. Somebody found a movie with a girl that just looks slightly like me – I mean, really," she rolls her eyes. "I was laughing afterwards because I couldn't believe how many people didn't see the difference. It was so obvious it wasn't me.
"They wanted to believe it. People like scandals. They like to see me in this kind of light. They like to see me like a bad girl. It was really mean. Many newspapers said it's wrong, it's not me, but still they ran it because it was good publicity. We'll never know who [released it], of course."
Her father, Josko, who has coached her since she was a child, and the rest of the family tried to keep the story quiet so it would not affect her performance in Doha. "They knew about it seven days before the championships and they were like, 'Don't tell her, don't tell her', because they didn't want me to worry. But I found out anyway. It was a big stress. I know it wasn't me but it's just the situation, you're thinking, 'How can someone be so cruel? How can they do this?' I couldn't sleep."
Despite the disruption Vlasic, 26, went on to defend her World Indoor title, although her winning jump of 2.0m, short of her best by eight centimetres, left some critics unimpressed. "It wasn't enough for some people. They were asking me why didn't I jump more. But I had a big stress. It was really difficult circumstances for me … they don't know what kind of stuff you are dealing with, it's not just come here and do what you can, there are so many things that interfere."
Vlasic speaks passionately about what it is to be an athlete, not just in the usual vocabulary of training hard and trying your best, but in ways that reveal the emotional complexities that affect athletes just like any other human being. She cannot stand anodyne sporting cliches, those who fail and shrug, "Oh well maybe it will come next time."
"It's just an empty phrase," she says, waving her hands around in agitation. Failure for her means depression and sobbing alone in a hotel room until she can pick herself up and compete again. "I'm the one who needs to make it better next time, I'm the one who needs to go through everything from the beginning to the warm-up to the jump to make it better. Nothing comes from the sky, you know."
This human side of Vlasic is what athletics crowds have fallen in love with. Sure, everyone likes to watch medals, but there is more to Vlasic. Her celebratory shrieks and dancing – accompanied by the kind of crotch thrusts and fist pumping that would make any footballer proud – have been entertaining crowds long before Usain Bolt ever turned up to dance the gully creeper. It could not be a bigger contrast to the celebrations of East German and Soviet athletes three decades ago.
"It started one year in Rome," she says. "I did a few steps because I was so happy and I was enjoying myself. So I started to dance a little bit, people really noticed it in Osaka [at the world championships in 2007] and then it became my trademark. It just comes naturally, and only after the heights I'm satisfied with. It's the way I communicate with the crowd. People don't come to stadiums only to see results. They come to see a reaction, they want to see we are also human, that we can cry or laugh."
Until then she is determined to enjoy life to the full. Recently she started wearing high heels, "Ten centimetres," she says proudly. "I'm already tall so what's 10cm more? I like so much wearing heels, legs look so much better, everything looks better. But it's only recently I've had the courage to do that. My older brother encouraged me. He said, 'Don't care what anyone else thinks', and it feels so good!"
She feels liberated these days, less self‑conscious, happy with her achievements, dancing on the crash mat. The accolades still missing from her career – European title, Olympic title, world record – are in some ways irrelevant, she says, after a decade spent setting the benchmark for women's high jump.
"I'm still here, and this is my ultimate goal. A good career is a long-lasting career. When you're there in every competition doing a good job you're a part of an elite, and that's the most important thing."
Tomorrow in Barcelona Vlasic will take on the Olympic champion, Belgium's Tia Hellebaut, and the European indoor champion Ariane Friedrich of Germany and she will hope to dance again.