Image: GEPA pictures / Christian Walgram
The Austrians Verena Mayr and Ivona Dadic are also given the exhausting task of fighting the heptathlon at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in the heat and high humidity. Of course, the joy is great, the two athletes said they had prepared for the conditions and long days. Both fought in advance with minor injuries in the back / thigh area, but do not see any restrictions in the competition.
Cooling vests are available between the disciplines, so other athletes have already had good experiences in the various sports. “The more you adjust to the fact that it is like that, the better you get along. I'm not very complicated here, it's just the way it is and you make the best of it,” said Dadic. They prefer to be warm anyway. During the morning session, she will use the vests, and perhaps also the ice bath during the break in the Olympic Village. In the afternoon / evening she found the climate pleasant, as she noticed while watching the discus.
Mayr wants to act in a similar way. Cooling will be necessary for the high jump, and she has also packed a mini fan. The Wednesday session begins at 9.35 a.m. local time with the 100 m hurdles (2.35 a.m. CEST), i.e. the day watch is at 5.00 a.m. The high jump follows, after a break of several hours, the shot put and the 200 m run continue in the evening. Long jump, javelin throw and 800 m follow on Thursday.
The training had recently gone in the right direction and gave self-confidence, explained Dadic, who this time did some things differently in the approach than at the 2016 games in Rio. “I won't make the same mistake again, back then I made a relatively short trip. I got tired during the competition, I want to prevent that in Tokyo. We want to give myself the time to adapt.” After finishing 25th in London in 2012 and 21st in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, it is their third game.
You hope to have a good start. “And even if it doesn't work, just go ahead and have a good competition. Of course the big goal is to fight for medals, but talking about it in advance doesn't make any sense.” It makes no difference to them whether they appear in the favorites or not. “I have to do a good competition, there is no advance payment, just a good competition, that is the decisive factor.”
It means trusting in your body. The feeling came back in the training. It remains to be seen whether she will come close to the best performance of 6,552 points. “I can count myself lucky to have had a good feeling in training in every discipline. The achievements in the run-up do not count here,” says the 27-year-old, her supervisor Philipp Unfried (head coach), Inga Babakova, Elisabeth Eberl, Sepp Schopf and Dwight Phillips.
The 26-year-old Mayr only arrived on Friday, has familiarized herself with the stadium and training ground and feels good. The 2019 World Cup bronze medalist in Doha and ÖLV record holder with 6,591 points is “excited” to be making her Olympic debut soon. “I trained what was possible so that I could stand here with confidence. I feel good in my body.” The Ratingen third (6,254) relies on Wolfgang Adler in training, who with Susanne Walli has a second athlete at the start in Tokyo over 400 m.
The top favorites are defending champion Nafissatou Thiam from Belgium and Briton Katarina Johnson-Thompson, who tore her Achilles tendon in December. “The field is pretty open, the season was good overall, but not outstanding,” said Dadic, who also has the Hungarian Xenia Krizsan, the Dutch Anouk Vetter and the German Carolin Schäfer on the bill. “The circle around the medals is very large, eight to nine athletes. I also include the US women,” said Mayr. And finally, the two ÖLV figureheads also called each other.
