Franka Dietzsch of Germany takes gold in the Discus Throw (© Getty Images)
It wasn’t gold but Franka Dietzsch was happy enough to settle for bronze this time. The occasion was Germany’s 59th edition of Sportsperson of the Year at the Baden-Baden Kurhaus on Sunday with Dietzsch achieving the highest placing for an athlete since Heike Drechsler and Nils Schumann swept all before them in 2000 after their Olympic triumphs.
Repeating her Beijing vows
In her elation the Neubrandenburg athlete took the opportunity to repeat what she had joked about after her surprise gold in Helsinki when she threatened to go on until Beijing 2008. A normal enough wish in a World champion you might think, but at 37 even she thought it was stretching it a bit. So to repeat the promise four months on is beginning to sound as though she means it: “I’ll do my best to make it to Beijing,” she vowed on Sunday evening.
After what happened on a rainy night in the Finnish capital this summer when she collected her second World Championship gold in six years no one would write her off just yet. After all, she has been an elite practitioner of her trade since 1986 when she first hurled the discus over 60 metres (64.34).
What’s another three years? And so the running joke between herself and coach Dieter Kollark that they will meet for a stroll on the Great Wall of China in 2008 has started to acquire some substance.
Decline
Typically for Dietzsch she is now taking her time over her new contract with SC Neubrandenburg. No rush, she says, and it is that relaxed attitude that has stood her in good stead through highs and lows. Don’t forget she started the season being demoted to the national B squad after failing to qualify for the Olympic final (27th) in the wake of a disappointing Paris World Championships (14th). It seemed to observers like a passable impression of an athlete in decline.
But just when all seemed lost, Kollark persuaded her to see sports psychologist, Willi Neumann, at the Neubrandenburg Technical High School. “She can be stubborn at times,” said Kollark “and wouldn’t always listen to me.”
Tendency to throw low
But it wasn’t only Neumann who led to Dietzsch’s resurgence this year. Attention to detail was crucial. Kollark and his charge had been experimenting with a new adhesive spray for the hands for performing in the rain. Helsinki 2005 was notorious for its spectacular storms. Even though the Discus Throw final was postponed two days it was still raining when the 12 finalists took to the circle in the old Olympic stadium on 11 August.
Kollark had also had a special pair of shoes re-soled and put in storage specifically for a wet surface. An old failing of Dietzsch was also decisive. A tendency to throw low was ideal under the stormy conditions with the result that any one of four throws would have won the title, reducing the Olympic champion, Natalya Sadova, (26 places ahead in Athens) to second-best.
A matter of trust
At 61 and with 37 years of coaching experience, Kollark left nothing to chance. He has worked with Dietzsch for 15 years but she knew of him long before when she was in her early teens in Empor Rostock. “I’ve known him since 1981 when I started competing. He was already with SC Neubrandenburg and in 1991 I decided to move there.” In the last ten years Kollark’s charges have harvested 10 golds in Olympic, World and European Championships, making him Germany’s most successful coach since unification.
“I’ve got the deepest trust in Kollark,” says Dietzsch. “If he had told me a day before the final to jump out of the window I would have done it.” But after almost two decades together there are also frictions: “He is often brusque and when he speaks it’s mostly critical,” she said in an ARD interview. Likewise, if she finds what he is saying unacceptable, she is not afraid to call him “crazy”.
So the Saving’s Bank employee’s long career seems destined to continue. With World (1999) and European (1998) titles under her belt when she stepped into the circle in Helsinki, she was one of ten athletes who had appeared in eight World Championships and she was the only one of the ten to emerge as victor by the time the Championships closed. “And if I’m still going in 2008, I can continue until 2009 when the World Championships are in Berlin.”
Is a tenth World championship feasible? Kollark thinks so: “Franka is mentally and physically young. She can keep going for a few more years yet.” This tale is not yet told.
Michael Butcher for the IAAF
