The first medal for the Netherlands has been won at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest. Anouk Vetter won the bronze in the heptathlon. This was mainly due to the javelin throw and the 800 meters, the last two events. The athlete from Amsterdam also qualified for next year’s Olympic Games in Paris.
Vetter finished on 6501 points, good for third place behind Katarina Johnson-Thompson (6740 points) and Anna Hall (6720 points). Vetter’s medal chances seemed to be gone after a lesser turn in the long jump. However, they were revived after a nice throw in the javelin throw (59.57 meters). In the final 800 meters it was still exciting whether she would win a medal, but she succeeded.
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“I wasn’t very nervous”, Vetter reacted after her bronze medal. “It went well for 700 meters and the last 100 meters were terrible. It shouldn’t have lasted a meter longer, or I would have fallen too, just like Sifan Hassan and Femke Bol. It can happen to anyone. Your legs feel on such a moment so heavy, it’s like in a bad dream: you want to walk, but you don’t move forward.”
Vetter became European champion in Amsterdam in 2016, won bronze at the 2017 World Cup in London, surprised with silver at the Tokyo Olympic Games in 2021 and won silver at the World Cup in Eugene last year in a Dutch record of 6867 points. In Budapest she achieved 6501 points, good for a ticket to the Paris Games.