For Lagger, the road to the World Cup leads via Götzis

For the first time since 2019, all-around fighter Sarah Lagger is contesting the traditional meeting in Götzis at the weekend. The World Championships in August is the goal of the season for the 23-year-old – in Vorarlberg, the athlete from the TGW Decathlon Union wants to take the next step towards Budapest.

The first was the 6010 points in the comeback in Desenzano in April. It was the Carinthian’s first competition after the 2022 summer season, which was missed due to bone marrow edema in the lumbar region. The best two heptathlons over 16 months count for participation in the World Championships, the best 24 athletes are in Budapest.

Two heptathlons will probably not be enough due to the qualification requirement, which is why Lagger has also planned to start a meeting at the end of July. “For the World Cup qualification, I clearly need one, ideally two, all-around fights that are better than Italy. Attacking my best performance of 6225 points would also be the goal this year, let’s see if that’s possible in Götzis,” said Lagger.

In August 2021, Lagger won the heptathlon at the all-around state championships in Amstetten and won her third championship honors. The following indoor season was promising. In February 2022 she won the championship title in Linz with a personal pentathlon best of 4468 points, and at the World Championships in Belgrade in March she finished eighth with 4391 points. The start of the outdoor season was planned in Götzis, but she had to cancel at short notice due to injury. “In the beginning it was pretty hard that I had to skip the summer with the European and World Championships after the good indoor season. That hurt. But I have a good environment, I was angry and sad for a few days, but the cool thing about it Sport is that you can start working again straight away. You always have the feeling that you can still do something.”

After a lot of physiotherapy, she carefully began to build up with her trainer Victoria Schreibeis in October. She had to be particularly careful when throwing the javelin, as an overload may have led to the edema. Lagger worked on imitation and visualization and switched the technique. “I’m more stable in the core now.”

Superstar Thiam is missing

In Götzis, the former U20 world champion meets the absolute elite, even if superstar Nafissatou Thiam is missing. “It’s really cool to compete in a competition like this. It’s almost like a World Cup,” said Lagger. Especially over the 100 meter hurdles and the 200 meters she would like to run faster times than in the comeback in Desenzano. “I’m in a good mood, but speed is always a bit of an issue for me. I just need several competitions so that I can get into it better.”

When she thinks about the Ländle meeting, she gets really nervous. “But positively nervous. I’m happy to be at the start. The audience and the atmosphere are something special,” said the army athlete.

In the junior division, she has won five medals in international title fights: U18 World Championship silver (2015), U18 European Championship silver, U20 World Championship gold (each in 2016), U20 European Championship bronze (2017) and U20 World Championship silver (2018). Now she really wants to get into the elite.