STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP)

Former world high jump champion Kajsa Bergqvist of Sweden has quit the sport in the year of the Beijing Olympics.

Bergqvist, 31, said yesterday she was physically fit but was not mentally prepared to compete and train for another season.

"If I do something I want to do it 100 per cent,'' Bergqvist said in a statement released by the Swedish Athletic Association. ''But I no longer feel that drive, even though it is an Olympic year and even though I initially planned for 2008 to be my last year.''

World champion

Bergqvist holds the indoor world record for women after jumping 2.08 metres in Arnstadt, Germany, in February 2006. She became indoor world champion in 2001 and 2003 and won the outdoor world championships in Helsinki, Finland, in 2005.

She also won bronze at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and won the European Championships in Munich in 2002.

However, the Swede finished a disappointing seventh in last year's World Championships in Osaka, Japan, after clearing only 1.94m. She finished fourth in her last competition, the Weltklasse Golden League meet in Zurich, Switzerland, in September.

"If you've done something at a high level for a very long time you eventually reach a point where you feel that you're done,'' she said "And that's exactly where I am right now.''