All-around competitor Schuler

With wind and out of competition to best performance

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

The Austrian U18/U23 championships in Burgenland brought 14 medals for Vorarlberg, with only Angelina Rupp winning gold in the U23 javelin throw. One of the Ländle highlights was provided by Chiara Schuler, who started out of competition and ran the 100 meter hurdles faster than ever before.

Chiara Schuler celebrated her 23rd birthday on June 2. This means that the army athlete is actually already too old to compete at the Austrian U23 Championships, which took place last weekend in Eisenstadt, the capital of Burgenland. However, the athlete from Hörbranz - as well as former indoor pentathlon runner-up Ivona Dadic, who was coached on site by mental coach Mathias Berthold - took the opportunity to take part in some disciplines out of competition.

While "Kiki" remained rather colorless in her starts over 100 and 200 meters due to a headache, she made an exclamation mark in the hurdles sprint! In 13.62 seconds, she beat her personal best by five hundredths of a second. A mark that will not go down in the statistics, however. The reason: the wind was blowing at 3.1 meters per second, instead of the maximum permitted 2.0 m/s. "But I'm sure that I would hardly have been slower even in normal conditions," explained Schuler, who said she was only able to run the first four hurdles at 95 percent and almost fell at the last hurdle due to the wind. "From that point of view, I'm very happy with my performance."

14 medals, but only one gold
There were a total of 14 medals for the Ländle starters in Eisenstadt. The only gold was won by Angelina Rupp from Hörbranz in the U23 javelin throw with a winning distance of 41.30 meters.