DThe beginning of his season was a disaster.There are raincoats and waterproof boots Christina Schwanitz In May, he was taken to Gateshead in northern England to participate in the first Diamond League meeting. As worried, it poured out of the bucket. “Ice will be worse,” the shot putter joked. She said nothing about the fact that the best of her four effective shots was only 17.86 meters: the last place in the game.
Because the situation got worse. As early as May, Christina Schwanitz recovered from a herniated disc; her main concern was to start again. In early March, she was injured at the European Indoor Championships in Toruń. In the last attempt she lost 19.04 meters and won the bronze medal. More than 50 athletes and supervisors, of which at least 7 are Germans, have returned from Poland infected with the new crown virus. On the other hand, Christina Schwanitz went home with a deaf right arm and a deaf right hand. No one thought she could push a four-pound iron ball to 20 meters.
To relieve the pain, she took 1,200 tablets of ibuprofen, as she said, “the elephant roars.” But it did not help. The neurologist finally recommended that cortisone be injected into the affected area. The result is the same as that of many infected people: bed rest. Christina Schwanitz spends time on the couch and tries to keep fit through gymnastics.
Mo. -Priest at 4 pm; Sa. – and so.18:00
This experienced athlete, 35 years old, is running out of time. Her coach Sven Lang said: “It is not easy to be at the forefront when you are 36 years old.” The two made a lot of preparations for Gateshead. “We finally started again,” she believed. From Chemnitz by car to Berlin, and then by plane to Newcastle, she was troubled by the late test-she arrived at the athlete hotel late at night. It wasn’t until there, at two in the morning, that she discovered that Germany had declared Britain a mutation zone the day before. After returning home, she would have to undergo a two-week isolation.This means: there was no training and no start at the German Championships in Braunschweig, where they had the last doubts about their qualifications for fourth place. Olympic Games Want to clear. The athlete attaches great importance to isolation. In order to avoid putting her husband and children at any risk, she slept in the basement.
“I love my shot put”
During this period, they got news of the unexpected death of their former manager and the death of their grandfather. When she actually participated in the Bad Liebenzell match in the Black Forest through strength training, it was more frustration than confirmation: four invalid attempts and one 18.11-meter shot-more than a year for the 2015 world champion Twenty meters, an indisputable result.
In early July, she returned to the ring from the training camp in South Tyrol at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm. It is irrelevant to the Olympic standard of 18.40 meters wide and 18.59 meters wide. Time is up. Due to this year’s European Indoor Championships in Torun and the 2019 World Championships in Doha, she won third place. The strongest long-distance and outside shooting is still a member of the Olympic team. She reached 19.17 meters. Last Friday, not far from home, in Toum in the Ore Mountains, she reached 18.63 meters-this is the best performance of the season, and hope to reach 19 meters again in Tokyo.
Why all the troubles, all the troubles after 25 years of sports? “I like my shot put,” said the 1.80-meter strong woman. “Feeling the ball in my hands and neck is a passion for me, making me feel at home.” One day, she wanted to look back at her life and said: “I have been to the Olympics four times. Some only won. Once.” Unlike the gold, silver and bronze world championships, she always came home empty-handed in the Summer Games. Beijing 2008 was the first time. She underwent five operations on her feet and traveled to China with screws. She is the eleventh. Although the tendon of the right arm was almost torn, she participated in the 2012 London Olympics: tenth. In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, she participated in the competition as a world and European champion, but a day and a half before the competition, she found out that her best friend had committed suicide. “It got me out of trouble,” she recalled. She was favored in the sixth place.
Hurry up, hurry up and leave
So now Tokyo wants to play games that might miss everything because of the pandemic Olympia matter. Coming soon, coming soon, this is the imagination of the participants of the International Olympic Committee and Japanese organizers. If Christina Schwanitz could be sure, she could have postponed the 2024 game to Paris, 2028 Paris to Los Angeles, and so on.
Who knows, maybe after the boring game in Japan, she would want to look forward to a Bavarian festival: the 2022 European Championship in Munich and the 1972 European Championship in the Olympic Stadium on the famous tent roof. When she looks back on her sports career and this damn year 2021 with her husband and children on Christmas Eve, she will make a decision.
