With this fourth posting, I am closing my coverage of the German Athletics Nationals 2023. The Auestadion in Kassel hosted the event as part of Die Finals, a group of German national championship competitions in various sports held at the same day. Despite high temperatures and humidity on the second day, the crowd was really active and pushed the athletes to some really good performances. Here is my coverage on 9th July 2023, looking at the track events (all post overview below).
This posting comes with 448 major size pictures in the sports gallery.
German Athletics Nationals – Day 2 Track Events
Soon after the Sunday events in Kassel kicked off with field events, it was time for the relays, which were held as timed runs, i.e. the fastest times of all the heats received the medals. First, the men competed in the 4x100m Relay, the women started thereafter. The men’s competition was won by TV Wattenscheid (39.39 sec), who were just a bit of fast than Hamburger SV and MTG Mannheim. The women’s competition saw Gina Lückenkemper smiling brightly for the second time in Kassel. As the closing runner, she sealed the time of 43.91 sec for SCC Berlin, who beat VfL Sindelfingen by more than four tenths of a second. However, Sindelfingen, LG Stadtwerke Munich and TV Wattenscheid were really close on silver, bronze and the fourth place.
I skipped the 200m semifinals to protected from the heat, so that the next event I covered on the track were the 400m Hurdles finals .The first race was on the women’s side. Not too surprisingly, Caolina Krafzik (VfL Sindelfingen), in line with her role as favorite, stormed the competition and won with a gap of almost a second. The men’s race was mich more of a thrill- Finally, Joshua Abuaku (Eintracht Frankfurt) won in the photo finish (officially leading by 0.002 second) and left Krafzik’s team mate Constantin Preis a bit on the unlucky side. What a great performance in this race at all – the first five athletes all beat their personal best times.
Then, it was time for the long distances. Kassel started with the men’s 1500m race. The match was definitely an intersting one with TV Wattenscheid’s Marius Probst becoming the German champion. Especially the second to fifth place was a very tight battle. In the women’s competition, ASV Cologne’s Vera Coutellier lead the race in the first two laps, but then had to give in that Katharina Trost (LG Stadtwerke Munich) and Hanna Klein (LAV Stadtwerke Tübingen) were the faster ones in the vast heat and humidity in the the Auestadion. Finally, Trost had a bit of a gap when she became German champion, Nele Weßel (Eintracht Frankfurt) finished third.
The 400m male race had four personal best and one season best time. One of them was winner Manuel Sanders, who left quite some gap in front of Jean Paul Bredau (SC Potsdam). The queen over this distance in Kassel was Skadi Schier (SSC Berlin). Beating her personal best, she left quite a gap in the women’s 400m race. Corinna Schwab (LAC Erdgas Chemnitz) closed second. Schier’s team mate Alica Schmidt took the bronze medal in the Auestadion.
Luis Oberbeck (LG Göttingen) had quite some support in Kassel for the men’s 800m finals. This might have been one of the key factor for gold in a close race. At least, it lead to quite some nice atmosphere in the venue during the race, despite the heat. Alina Ammann (TuS Esingen) won a tough fight in the women’s 800m race. Between Ammann and third-placed Majtie Kolberg (LG Kreis Ahrweiler), who lead after the first round, there was just a tenth of a second. LG Stadtwerke Munich’s Christina Hering just took the silver metal this time.
The closing long distance run for the ladies was the 3000m Steeplechase. Like the day before, Bayer Leverkusen’s Lea Meyer was the queen of the long distances in Kassel. She pushed her opponents to their limits, especially in the second half of the race. Finally, she had a 12 second gap in front of Olivia Gürth (Diezer TSK Oranien) and even managed to overlap quite a few of her competitors.
Mohamed Abdilaahi (LG Olympia Dortmund) was definitely the unlucky guy in the men’s 5000m competition. He tried to push for a fast race at the beginning and already had quite some distance to his chasers. However, the group of four competitors finally could catch him again. Abdilaahi had a strong race, but others were just a bit too strong for him. In a close sprint finish, Florian Bremm (LG Höchstadt/Aisch) had the better end and beat Maximilian Thorwirth (SFD 75 Dusseldorf-Süd).
The heat was just too much for me. Thus, similarly to the women’s long jump on the field event side, I skipped the 200m finals at the end of the event. Bad luck, as the women’s race was a great one with the first five athletes being withing 0.13 seconds. The winner finally was finally Alexandra Burghardt (Wacker Burghausen, 23.36 sec), who was just 1/100 sec in front of Lisa Nippgen (MTG Mannheim). Joshua Hartmann (ASV Cologne) had a much easier time in the men’s competition. His 20.02 sec did not only close the event with a new German record over this distance, but was just too strung for the remaining racers.The pictures are taken from the women’s semifinals.
German Athletics Nationals – Day 2 Track – Gallery
Here is the match gallery with 448 major pictures in the sports gallery section:
The pictures of all four posts representing the two days in Kassel are summed up in a dedicated gallery group.
German Athletics Nationals 2023 – Coverage Overview
Here is an overview of my coverage of the German Athletics Nationals:
- 2023-07-08 Day 1 – Track Events
- 2023-07-08 Day 1 – Field Events
- 2023-07-09 Day 2 – Track Events
- 2023-07-09 Day 2 – Field Events
Flyctory.com in Kassel
Here are all my postings related to the German city Kassel:
Germany-related Sports postings
Here are all Flyctory.com Sports postings related to Germany: