"Worked perfectly"
Women’s relay team sets dream record at European Championships in Rome
Dream record for the Austrian women's sprint relay team at the European Championships in Rome! The quartet of Isabel Posch, Leni Lindner, Karin Strametz and Viktoria Willhuber came sixth in the semifinals, improving their best time from 44.18 to a magnificent 43.84 and finishing in a strong twelfth place overall!
The "Krone" reports from Rome
All the handovers worked perfectly in this semi-final! This allowed the quartet to storm to this great best time. No wonder the four young ladies were overjoyed during the interview. They said in unison: "We knew that all four of us were good runners. A time like that was possible." Leni Lindner: "Our goal was a record, the dream was to run under 44 seconds for the first time." And the record was pulverized! The old record had stood at 44.18 since the previous year, so now it was 34 hundredths faster!
A dream come true
Starting runner Isabel Posch was very pleased with her turn and the handover to Leni Lindner. "Then I was able to take over on the fly at full speed," beamed Leni Lindner, whose transition with Karin Strametz was also perfect. "Everything went really well," said a delighted Strametz, who had already finished tenth in the hurdles sprint. And final runner Viktoria Willhuber? "I had everything under control, as I had seen that the first changes were great, I then stepped on the gas!"
Austria finished in an unexpectedly good sixth place in the semi-finals, ahead of Greece and Estonia. Twelfth place overall. By far the best European Championship placing for Austria in a women's relay. With the best times from 2023 and 2024, the quartet had secured one of the coveted 16 starting places for the European Championships in 14th place. A dream come true.
Hudson's big throw today?
But the title fights are not yet over for red-white-red. Tonight, Victoria Hudson has a great chance of winning a medal in the javelin throw final (21:36) and Raphael Pallitsch is hoping for a top ten place in tomorrow's 1500m final ...
Victoria Hudson, who caused a sensation by finishing fifth at last year's World Championships, has long since established herself among the world's best. With her record of 66.06 m achieved this year in Eisenstadt, she is still number 2 in the world behind Colombia's Flor Dennis Ruiz (66.70 m) and is therefore one of the medal candidates in today's final as Europe's top athlete. But paper is patient...
The record throw in Eisenstadt gave her a boost, but she knows: "The fact that I'm going into the final as number 1 won't count for anything. The cards will be reshuffled." She will be the fifth athlete to throw in the final of the best twelve. "The first step is to qualify for the top 8! Then we'll see what happens." But if she manages to throw almost perfectly, as she did recently in Eisenstadt, then she will be right at the front and would win the second European Championship medal for Austria in the women's javelin after Herma Bauma (silver in Brussels in 1950).
Lukas Weißhaidinger, also trained by Gregor Högler, has already shown her how it's done in Rome by winning the silver medal in the discus throw. Like Victoria Hudson, he didn't have to go all out in qualifying to reach the final. With 60.15 m, she had advanced to the final relatively easily in fifth place overall. "Anything is possible," she said confidently before the showdown in the evening.
17 (!) runners in the final
If Victoria Hudson has her sights set on a medal in the javelin, Raphael Pallitsch's entry into the final alone was a sensation. The final almost threatened to become a "slaughter". Because there are not twelve runners, as there should normally have been, but 17 athletes. The reason: there were numerous (successful) protests in the second heat after a wild mass crash, meaning that not six but eleven runners from this heat were given a place in the final. This has probably never happened before in the 90-year history of the European Championships.
The huge field naturally made it more difficult for Raphael Pallitsch, who had narrowly qualified for the final in sixth place in a real thriller, to secure a top ten place. The pushing and shoving on the track will be fierce, and the risk of falling has also increased. Pallitsch, an excellent tactician, may find decisive gaps to play to his strengths on the home straight. But just reaching the final was already "a big dream" for him.
Four top 10 places already
These two finals are still to come, but the ÖLV can already look back on a good performance at this European Championships. There have already been four top 10 places in Rome - in addition to Lukas Weißhaidinger, Susanne Gogl-Walli in the 400 m (seventh), the men's team in the half marathon (ninth) and Karin Strametz in the 100 m hurdles (tenth). Already an impressive result.
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