Anouk Vetter

About Anouk Vetter

Youth

Anouk Vetter was born into an athletics family. Her father, Ronald Vetter , was a teacher at CIOS . He had practiced hammer throw as an athlete and subsequently developed into an athletics trainer and national coach of the Athletics Union . [1] Her mother, Gerda Blokziel , won two national titles as a javelin thrower in the 1980s . In the D-girls (age category 12/13 years old) Anouk already excelled in the same part and achieved a place in the national rankings.

First international experiences

Anouk Vetter gained her first international experience at the 2009 European Youth Olympic Festival in Tampere . She took part in the javelin throw and was a member of the 4 x 100 m relay team . In the individual number, however, she had to withdraw from the final due to a shoulder injury, for which she had previously qualified. The relay team was subsequently disqualified after a substitution outside the substitution area and a subsequent fall by teammate Eva Lubbers . [2]

Two years later she was part of the Dutch squad that was sent to the European Junior Championships in Tallinn . This time Vetter took part in the heptathlon, but again she was hampered by an injury. As a result, she was forced to stay aside on the second day of this competition, which was won by compatriot Dafne Schippers.

Chased by bad luck

In 2012, Vetter was given a new opportunity to profile herself internationally. She had qualified for the junior world championships in Barcelona that year with a personal best of 5764 points in the heptathlon and seemed to have a good chance of a good ranking. However, that chance was canceled out by a fall in the first part, the 100 m hurdles . Although she managed to match her PR of 1.75 m in the high jump , she then gave up the unequal battle.

A year later, at the European U23 Championships in Tampere, after a PR heptathlon of 5872 points in Florence in May, Vetter had another chance to distinguish herself internationally and this time it seemed to succeed. After the first day she was in second place behind the British Katarina Johnson-Thompson with an intermediate score of 3673 points in the heptathlon . On the second day, however, another injury threw a spanner in the works and after the long jump she had to stop the fight on the advice of the medical supervision. 'Due to a tear in my quadricepsI couldn't go on. I was so close... That year I had a lot of doubts. Everyone said I was talented, but what good was it if I wasn't taxable enough?', says Vetter.

In the winter that followed, Vetter decided, because of her sensitivity to injuries, to change the take-off leg in the long jump. Instead of pushing off with the right, she switched to pushing off with her left leg. This experiment turned out well, because at the Dutch indoor championships in 2014 she jumped a pr with 6.06. She came third, her first medal at a senior national championship, while she was fourth in the shot put and sixth in the 60 m hurdles . Promising results in one weekend for the heptathlon during the Hypomeeting in Götzis, for which she had already received an invitation, based on the 5872 points she had scored in 2013. She considered reaching 6000 points in Götzis without injuries as her main goal for the 2014 season.

Götzis became the benchmark for her further career. Under favorable circumstances, she scored, just like all other Dutch decathletes present that weekend, a PR. In her case it was a total of 6316 points, an improvement of 444 points. Although she remained somewhat in the shadow of Dafne Schippers and Nadine Broersen with a ninth place, who both surpassed the Dutch record set by Schippers from 2012 with a third and fourth place and scores in the 6500 points, Vetter was third in the Netherlands with her performance qualified for the European Championships in Zurich . [6]

At the Dutch Championships in Amsterdam, Vetter then won her second medal at an NC for seniors: she came third in the long jump with an outdoor PR performance of 5.92. She also placed fifth in the 100 m hurdles. The apotheosis of the season followed a month later in Zurich , where she finished seventh in the heptathlon. Vetter: 'There was an emotional release in Götzis, but it was actually even bigger at the European Championships in Zurich. (...) Nadine Broersen won silver and I ran a lap of honor with her. I loved that. When I got to the catacombs, Bart Bennema was waiting for me. I started crying hard anyway. I was very happy that I had succeeded in a major tournament for once.'

2015: Adult heptathlete role confirmed

The most important event during the 2015 indoor season for Vetter was her participation in the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships in Prague . That is why during the preceding NK indoor she limited herself to two events: the 60 m hurdles and the shot put . It earned her a bronze and a silver medal respectively through two PR performances. A few weeks later she competed well in the pentathlon in Prague . With three PRs on the first four events (60 m hurdles, shot put and long jump) she was fifth in the standings. On the final part, the 800 m, she focused too much on another runner, so that race went relatively too slowly and she dropped back to eighth place. Nevertheless, her score of 4548 points was a PR achievement, although according to Vetter 4600 points had been used.
The first serious showdown of the track season was again the Hypomeeting in Götzis on May 30 and 31. With three PR achievements (in the 100 m hurdles, the shot put - the only one beyond 15 meters - and the 200 m ), Vetter finally came to a PR total of 6458 p, placing sixth behind Nadine Broersen, among others. (third with 6531 p) and Nadine Visser (fifth with 6467 points). All three also met the qualification limit for participation in both the World Championships in Beijingas the 2016 Olympic Games. Still, Vetter was not completely satisfied, had the feeling that there could have been more to it. She sought confirmation of that feeling a month later at a heptathlon in Ratingen , which she said she went to without any special preparation, but "to try out a few things." She did better in the shot put, javelin and 800 m than in Götzis and won the competition with a score of 6387 pts.

Her participation in the World Cup in Beijing in August should have been the highlight of the year for Vetter, but it did not. Due to a fall over the hurdles, she had suffered a heel injury in the run-up to Beijing, which had only just healed at the start of the World Cup heptathlon. A sprained ankle waking up in Beijing this morning didn't make things any better, even though an X-ray showedthat there was no permanent damage. All in all, it was a tough tournament for Vetter, both physically and mentally. After the first day she even doubted whether she could still take action on the second day. In the end she succeeded, so that after a twelfth place and a point score of 6267, she could still look back on the tournament with satisfaction, even though she was the lowest of the three Dutch participants (Nadine Broersen came fourth, Nadine Visser eighth), classified.

European champion

mid-February of 2016, Anouk Vetter unexpectedly received an invitation to participate in the world indoor championships in Portland . However, she stuck to her plan to align everything with the summer season in 2016 and decided not to participate. As far as indoor competitions are concerned, she limited herself to the NK indoor , where she competed in three parts. This resulted in three different medals: bronze in the 60 m hurdles in a pr time of 8.25, silver in the shot put with a pr of 15.45 and gold in the javelin throw.

After a training internship in April, Vetter tested her form at the Hypomeeting in Götzis at the end of May, as has been customary in recent years. Although she performed well in three of the four elements after the first day, with a PR time of 23.70 in the final 200 m, she had injured her ankle in the high jump and doubted whether she would still be able to compete on the second day. action could come. She eventually did, against the advice of her trainer, father Ronald Vetter (Vetter: 'I didn't want to be a pussy'), but with a lot of pain and effort she finished eighth with 6282 points. The incident strengthened her conviction that she would do the best to put the European Championships in Amsterdam out of her mind and fully concentrate on the approaching Games in Rio de Janeiro.

However, the European Championship for its own audience and in her hometown turned out to be more attractive than expected. So when she recovered fairly quickly after Götzis and some goals to test the load capacity were achieved, she decided to take part in the heptathlon in the packed Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam on July 8, 2016 . She did not regret that decision, because on July 9, 2016 she won her very first European title there . With her score of 6626 points, she not only broke a gap of 168 points with the silver winner, the Frenchwoman Antoinette Nana Djimou , but she also improved the Dutch record of Dafne Schippers.

The unexpected victory in Amsterdam caused an emotionally difficult period, so expectations for Rio were not too high. Vetter confessed shortly before the Games that she would be happy with a top-8 ranking. [12] In Rio de Janeiro, Vetter was in seventh place after the first day and seemed to be able to achieve the hoped-for result. On the second day, however, she dropped back to tenth place, although she finished her heptathlon with a pr of 2.17.71 in the 800 m. With her total points of 6394 and the fact that she had finished as the best Dutch (Nadine Broersen finished thirteenth, Nadine Visser nineteenth) she was satisfied afterwards. It strengthened her conviction that she "could really participate from now on".

Bronze at World Cup 2017

Just like the year before, Vetter largely missed the indoor season in 2017. Some minor knee complaints made her choose this in consultation with her trainer. She only briefly showed herself in the 60 m hurdles at the NK indoor in Apeldoorn . Although she finished just outside the medals here, her time of 8.27, 0.02 seconds above her personal best performance, was satisfactory. The real first serious test of the outdoor season was then again the Hypomeeting in Götzis at the end of May. And although the Dutch, with an eighth place, hardly stood out against the violence that the Belgian Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam displayed by setting a meeting and Belgian recordof 7013 points to win the heptathlon, Vetter was certainly not dissatisfied with her score of 6497 points.
The NK in Utrecht used Vetter to test her form on a few parts in the run-up to the World Championships in London . After having already increased her shot put PR to 16.00 m at the Ter Specke Bokaal in Lisse at the start of the outdoor season , she opted for two other disciplines in Utrecht : the long jump and the 100 m hurdles. It earned her the title on the first number and a silver medal on the second number behind hurdle specialist Eefje Boons .

Despite the previous performance, Anouk Vetter had little confidence in a good result at the start of the heptathlon at the World Championships in London. She almost abandoned her hopes for a top-five finish after the first day, which she finished fifth in the standings. On the second day, however, she managed to hold on to that place in the first event, the long jump, with a season-best performance of 6.32. When she then shot with the javelin, not least to her own surprise, to 58.41, a championship record in a World Cup heptathlon and also 4.5 meters further than the next Olympic champion Thiam, she suddenly climbed to the third place. Her fear that she would lose that place again in the last event, the 800 m, turned out to be unfounded and with a final score of 6636 points,German Carolin Schäfer (silver with 6696 p). With this, Anouk Vetter followed in the footsteps of Dafne Schippers, who had achieved a similar performance at the 2013 World Cup in Moscow.