Sophie Weißenberg had been looking forward to this moment for nine months: starting the hurdles race at the all-around meeting in Götzis. Her first heptathlon since the World Cup in August 2023. Finally showing what she can do – maybe even the Olympic standard?
Sunshine, pleasant temperatures, the Mösle stadium well filled. Presentation of the starters. Fourth run, lane 1: Sophie Weißenberg from Germany, 26 years old, 1.81 meters tall, ponytail, red top. She waves, slapping her hands on her thighs. “I realized that I was in a really good mood,” she would later say. Look ahead. Concentration. Starting signal.
And then it takes less than seven seconds for the weekend to be ruined for Weißenberg. She stumbles at the fifth hurdle, avoids the sixth, knocks the obstacle over with her hand and spins out on the grass. “It happened faster than I could think.” DNF is in the result lists. “Did not finish” is what it means in athletics jargon. Zero points in hurdles.
“A whole life in two days”
Sophie Weißenberg can no longer see that her competitors are striving towards the goal with quick steps. She lies huddled on the grass, her hands covering her face and crying. Only when her Dutch colleague Emma Oosterwegel comes and comforts her does Sophie Weißenburg slowly get to her feet.
For now, the German is heartbrokendpa
“Decathlon is a whole life in two days” is a saying among track and field athletes. The same applies to the heptathlon. The change between heaven and hell is fluid and can happen at any time and unexpectedly.
Frustration tolerance is therefore part of the requirement profile of heptathletes. You have to train day in and day out to be good enough in all seven sub-disciplines. But they can only prove it in three or four competitions a year – “and then everything has to fall into place”.
Often enough not everything fits. At the 2022 World Cup, Sophie Weißenberg was on course for the top ten before she made three invalid attempts in the long jump. At the home European Championships in Munich a few weeks later, a top-five place was within reach before she was taken out of the competition before the last discipline due to a positive corona test.
The hurdles were her fate: Sophie Weißenberg can’t believe itdpa
The Neubrandenburg native, who is starting for Bayer Leverkusen, wrote on her website that she could take a lot with her from the 2022 season, “especially that I am in very good physical shape.” And she deliberately set her standards high: “My development shows that I have the potential to fight for a medal at the 2024 Olympic Games.”
As a psychology student, she has always been interested in “human behavior, thoughts and actions.” “Yes, I’m concerned with the right mindset,” she says in Götzis after her failed hurdle race. And debates for a while whether she should continue. The Olympic norm is perdu. So why bother anymore?
“I’m relatively fast,” that was her realization after long months of training. Now she wanted to show off her skills. “You know what you have done,” she said full of anticipation at the presentation of the athletes in the community center the day before – and then added with a touch of fatalism: “It can mean everything or nothing.”
The day after, she takes on the further competition only after the tears have dried. However, 1.74 meters in the high jump and 13.40 meters in the shot put are not brilliant achievements. But later she comes up trumps again: “You can’t do anything wrong in the 200-meter run,” she mocks herself – “there are no hurdles in the way” – and runs faster than ever before. In 23.39 seconds, Weißenberg not only wins her race, but also the entire discipline ranking – the “patronage”, as it is called here – and even receives a small gold medal for it. It’s her first and she wanted it very much.
3624 points for her four-and-a-half fight
A year ago she took fifth place in Götzis with 6,375 points, but at the 2023 World Cup in Budapest she rose to seventh place to 6,438 points – which meant she narrowly missed the Olympic standard (6,480 points) and the one for the European Championships (6,300 ) but certainly managed. Rome (June 7th and 8th) is now her next big goal. But the trip to Paris (August 8th and 9th) is also practically booked. Only five heptathletes have so far achieved the high requirement, but 24 are allowed to take part. The field for the “Road to Paris” will be filled according to the world rankings. And Sophie Weißenburg is in eighth place.
In Götzis she takes part in the long jump on Sunday and manages 6.25 meters. Afterwards, in consultation with national coach Jörg Roos, she decided to save her other “grains” for the European Championships and forego the javelin throw and the 800-meter run. She had to undergo surgery on her right foot in the fall. As a long-term consequence, “the technical aspects are not quite right yet,” she admitted: “We still need two or three weeks. It would be stupid to risk anything here.” 3624 points will go down in the annals for their four-and-a-half fight.
