LA Indoor World Championships

Semi-final exit for Strametz despite record time!

Karin Strametz

(Bild: ÖLV / Giancarlo Colombo)

Karin Strametz has been eliminated in the semi-finals of the 60 m hurdles at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Glasgow! In the first of the three heats, she achieved a new personal best time of 8.00 seconds on lane 1 in fifth place, but that was not enough to make it to the final of the eight best. This means the end of these title fights for Austria. With three top ten places, the ÖLV celebrated an excellent result. 

"Of course I'm very happy with the best time," said Strametz, who improved her own top time of 8.03 seconds set this year by three hundredths and finished 13th overall in the world. She overtook Steffi Bendrat (8.02) in the "eternal" Austrian best list and is now second only to record holder Beate Schrott (7.96).

Just a small drop of bitterness
"Of course I'm a little sad that I missed out on a hundredth of a second to run under eight seconds for the first time," admitted the 25-year-old, who immediately knew where in the race she had left those hundredths: "I didn't run well on the first two hurdles, I only actually got into the final perfectly after the third hurdle." However, this was only a small drop of bitterness. She had already made it through to the last 24 with a strong 8.04 from the preliminary heat.

Karin Strametz

(Bild: ÖLV / Giancarlo Colombo)

By reaching the semi-finals alone, Strametz continued the tradition of Austrian success in the hurdles sprint. Schrott celebrated her greatest success at the World Indoor Championships as seventh in the 60 m hurdles in 2012. Bendrat (2018) and Elke Wölfling (2003) also reached the semi-finals. However, Strametz has now achieved the fastest time ever run by an Austrian woman over 60 m hurdles at a World Indoor Championships with 8.00. She replaced Schrott (8.12) at the top of this statistic.

Excellent ÖLV results
The overall performance of the small, five-man ÖLV team in Glasgow was excellent. Austria celebrated one of its greatest successes in the history of the World Indoor Championships since the premiere in Indianapolis in 1987 with three top ten places across the board. Verena Mayr finished fifth in the pentathlon (4466), Susanne Gogl-Walli sixth in the 400 m (records of 51.41 in the preliminaries and 51.37 in the final) and Markus Fuchs tenth in the 60 m (personal best of 6.58). Leni Lindner was the only one of the five Austrian athletes to be eliminated in the 60 m preliminaries.

More top ten places only in 2003
The last time the ÖLV achieved more top places than now in Glasgow was 21 years ago with four top ten places. In Birmingham 2003, Steffi Graf (800 m) came second, Karin Mayr (60 m) fourth, Elmar Lichtenegger (60 m hurdles) ninth and Günther Weidlinger (3000 m) tenth. Austria won a total of five medals at the World Indoor Championships with 4 x silver and 1 x bronze.

Hurdles world record in the final
In the women's 60 m hurdles final, Devynne Charlton improved her own world record of 7.67 seconds by two hundredths to 7.65. This was the second world record of these championships. Femke Bol had previously improved her own record in the 400 m to 49.17 seconds. On the final day, Bol led the Dutch 4 x 400 m relay team to gold in 3:25.07. A third world record was still up in the air at the very end of the World Championships, but it did not fall. Mondo Duplantis (SWE) failed in his attempt to improve his own pole vault world record of 6.23 m by one centimeter to 6.24 m after clearing 6.05. The most successful nation was once again the USA with 6 x gold, 9 x silver and 5 x bronze.