As a pre-qualified athlete, the 28-year-old entered the 400 m competition directly in the semi-finals. There, the Linz athlete lost out to Romanian Andrea Miklos in the sprint for second place by just one hundredth of a second. However, with her time of 51.14, Gogl-Walli was among the other two fastest athletes and secured promotion in eighth place overall.
“It was incredibly exciting, I’m extremely happy about the final and the time. It’s great that it worked out,” said Gogl-Walli, who had to cancel a competition during the preparation for the European Championships for health reasons, but is now back to full strength. “But it wasn’t easy to know in advance what was possible because my first race of the season wasn’t that good. I had promising training sessions, but whether I can implement that in the competition is another question. It worked out very well.”
Gogl-Walli runs into the European Championship final over 400 m
Susanne Gogl-Walli has reached the 400m final at the European Athletics Championships in Rome. The Linz native reached the final in eighth place overall thanks to her time. The final will take place on Monday evening.
She wants to attack in the final on Monday evening. She has been assigned the second inner lane (lane one remains free), and she wants to work out a tactic for this. “It’s my first outdoor final, I’m extremely motivated and have nothing to lose.” She came into the final in eighth place. If she doesn’t make any mistakes, she’ll definitely finish eighth. “But I’ll fight for every place and believe that I can beat one or two of them.”
Ninth place for half marathon team
Austria’s men’s half marathon team finished ninth in the morning when Italy won the title. The best in the individual ranking was 19-year-old Timo Hinterndorfer in 32nd place in 1:04:27 hours, Andrea Vojta (1:05:38) finished 42nd on his 35th birthday and at his seventh European Championship.
Hinterndorfer approached the race with commitment. “I was very motivated, it was quite exhausting, but I fought well,” said the Viennese. All five Austrians reached the finish line, Peter Herzog (1:06:07) was 49th, Mario Bauernfeind (1:08:03) 54th and Dominik Stadlmann (1:09:03) 57th. Gold went to the Italian Yemaneberhan Crippa (1:01:03).
ÖLV half marathon team ninth at European Championships
Austria’s men’s half marathon team finished ninth at the European Athletics Championships in Rome as Italy won the title. The best in the individual ranking was 19-year-old Timo Hinterndorfer, who came 32nd in 1:04:27 hours.
In the women’s race, Norwegian Karoline Bjerkeli Grövdal (1:08:09) won. Austria’s marathon record holder Julia Mayer (1:12:40) came in 36th. “It was a rollercoaster ride of really good, not so good and then very, very good again. At 19.5 the heat suddenly hit me hard. But it was a solid race.” For her, it was the first real, fast, flat tempo run with a view to the Olympic start in Paris over the 42.195 km.
The preliminary round of the 400 m hurdles was the end of the road for European Championship debutant Leo Köhldorfer, who came in 33rd place in 51.52 seconds. “I knew I had to run fast if I wanted to have a chance of making it to the semi-finals, and I certainly paid a bit of a price for that in the end.”
