2023-08-21 19:42:16
Lukas Weißhaidinger failed to win a medal at the European Athletics Championships in Budapest on Monday. The 31-year-old finished seventh in the discus throw final with 65.54 m. Olympic champion Daniel Ståhl from Sweden won gold with 71.46 m, beating defending champion Kristjan Čeh from Slovenia (70.02) and Lithuanian Mykolas Alekna (68.85) in the high-class final.
In the prelim on Saturday evening, none of the throwers had broken the 66.50 m mark, which was set high as a fixed qualification for the final. Weißhaidinger managed the climb in fifth place and was only 64 centimeters behind Ståhl. As expected, the devices of the top throwers flew much further in the final – Weißhaidinger might not keep up on the muggy and hot evening.
The Upper Austrian, who had largely retained his set-up for the final, chose a slightly more risky model for the shoes. He started with start number one and 63.57 m, a solid first throw was also the plan. Ceh employed an entirely different tactic, with the defending champion throwing the tackle at 68.31.
Weißhaidinger went into the second round in sixth place, followed by 65.19, which brought him to seventh place. After 62.85, there was concern regarding entering the super final of the top eight, but the athletes behind him had nothing more to improve and Weißhaidinger was able to increase the risk for the last three attempts. After shots of 65.20 and 65.54, there was only one attempt left to advance into the medal ranks. Invalid also meant no medal.
After the year 2022 without a medal – tenth at the World Championships in Eugene, ninth at the World Championships in Munich – discussions regarding possible medals were deliberately avoided, at least in public, in advance, but goals were of course issued. To make it into the top eight in the final – which came true – and to improve the 67.07 m at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, because this was Weißhaidinger’s longest throw at a major event. The ÖLV athlete will have to wait for the 2024 Summer Games in Paris to be able to do that.
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