Dresden - Battke 4.60, Gadschiew, Shvedova 4.45

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http://www.iaaf.org/news/kind=100/newsid=49000.html

Battke building consistency

Three women looked capable of taking the Pole Vault: Besides Battke, her fellow countrywoman Kristina Gadschiew had a couple of great jumps and there was Russia’s Anastasiya Shvedova as well. Battke had already impressed with a 4.60m at a regional championship a week earlier. So this time she did not start competing until the bar was raised to 4.45m. At that stage there were only Gadschiew and Shvedova left in the competiton. Jirina Ptácniková (Czech Republic/4.20m) had taken fourth place and Lisa Ryshich (Germany/4.20 m) was fifth.

While Gadschiew had very good jumps at 4.20 and 4.35m she also cleared 4.45m at her second attempt. Shvedova, who had problems with her run-up in her first comeptition of the year and because of this chose a short run-up of only eighht steps, also jumped 4.45m at her second attempt. It did not look to favour Battke, when she had interrupted her final attempt and just managed to avoid a foul. There was no clock with a countdown, which was Battke’s luck, because it took quite a bit of time until she finally did fly over 4.45m in convincing fashion.

Battke then passed the next height of 4.50m again. While Gadschiew had some promising jumps but missed all three Shvedova cleared that height at once and remained in the lead. But when the bar was up at 4.60m Battke was back again. And once more she made it extremely exciting. At her very last attempt she flew over 4.60m and established the meeting record, beating Shvedova, who missed three times, into second (4.50m) and Gadschiew into third (4.45m). Battke then went for a new German indoor record of 4.71m, but missed three times.

Asked about whether she was surprised about her strong start into the indoor season Battke said: “No I am not. I have expected this. The reasons are my new coaches, with whom I have trained very well.”

While her former coach Herbert Czingon became one of the two national head coaches after Beijing, Balian Buschbaum (former Yvonne Buschbaum) became her coach. Additionally Andrej Tivontschik takes care about the technique. Battke could well make it to Torino for the European Indoors despite the strong German competition.

“My biggest competitors at present are my poles,” she said. “I used the ones from last week, but at my second competition of the season they suddenly felt much softer. That was the reason why it became so close jumping the heights.”