Kristin Pudenz takes revenge for her disappointing World Cup performance a month ago and wins silver at the European Championships. With a personal best of 67.87 meters, the Potsdam native is only eight centimeters behind the Croatian Sandra Perkovic, who won her sixth European Championship title.
Kristin Pudenz grabbed the Germany flag and posed beaming for the cameras on the lap of honor together with Claudine Vita. The discus thrower finally had a reason to celebrate at the European Championships: After the disappointing World Championships in Eugene, Pudenz won the silver medal in front of her teammate in front of around 40,000 enthusiastic fans in Munich’s Olympic Stadium.
The blockage in her head cleared at just the right time. With a personal best of 67.87 m, Pudenz was only eight centimeters short of the new and old Croatian European Champion Sandra Perkovic, who won her sixth European Championship title in a row with 67.95 m.
Vita (Neubrandenburg/65.20 m) rounded off the excellent result for the German Athletics Association (DLV) with bronze, Eugene’s fifth place in the World Championships delivered a best performance of the season at the highlight in Munich. The third German starter Shanice Craft (Mannheim/62.78 m) also made it into the top 8 in seventh place.
For Pudenz, the medal is the culmination of a grueling season. As a silver medalist at the Olympics, she traveled to Eugene for the World Championships with great expectations, but could not withstand the pressure and came in eleventh, disappointing. Together with her mental coach Marc Uhlmann, she worked through the competition in the USA. “It was a matter of the mind,” said Pudenz, looking back after her sovereign qualification on Monday: “I’m confident that it won’t happen again tomorrow.” She should be right.
Unlike Eugene, when her first attempt floundered in the net, Pudenz was immediately in contention. From 62.44 it finally increased to 65.05 to 67.87 – higher than ever before. With her 67.10 m this year, the sports soldier had traveled to Bavaria as Europe’s number two – and impressively lived up to this position.
