EM fourth Gogl-Walli in a new orbit

At the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul, the woman from Linz finished fourth in the final over 400 meters (gold went to Holland’s Femke Bol) and also improved Karoline Käfer’s 44-year-old ÖLV record by 17 hundredths in 51.73 seconds. Gogl-Walli: “That’s a satisfaction.”

In the past few weeks and months she has been in top form, which is by no means a matter of course in one of the core Olympic sports. In Istanbul, the Linz catapulted itself into a new orbit in terms of its performance. “I’m happy to have run well here with the best in Europe. The final was a dream, the record was a bonus,” said Gogl-Walli afterwards in the “Ataköy Arena”.

The gym teacher gave the go-ahead

She came to athletics in 2009 through her gym teacher at the Aloisianum, where she graduated with distinction. The daughter of a South Tyrolean mother and a Linzer father only briefly trained in terms of performance when she gave her first talent test in 2014 at the Junior World Championships in Eugene. Against strong international competition, she made it to the final of the stadium round and finished eighth.

In the junior classes, she, who received her basic training at the TGW decathlon union of the Werthner brothers, still competed in several disciplines, true to the club motto, but her strengths quickly crystallized in running. “Especially when it comes to sprinting, I like the simplicity of the idea: who can run from A to B the fastest.” The fact that she didn’t gain a foothold earlier was due to an injury.

She is now being coached by Wolfgang Adler and made it to the semi-finals of her first Olympic Games last year in Tokyo. Since last October she has been married to professional cyclist Michael Gogl, who is active in the World Tour and whom she met in the army in 2015. The couple of athletes support each other during the tough training sessions. And the end of the road doesn’t seem to have been reached for either of them.