Johannes Vetter’s Road to Redemption: Overcoming Shoulder Injuries for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris

2023-09-13 11:38:26

As is well known, Germany did not win a single medal at the recent World Athletics Championships – the absolute lowest point in DLV history.

On the one hand, this was due to the lack of competitiveness of the German athletes in Budapest, but on the other hand, it was also due to their high-profile failures.

If you look at the winners’ lists, a Malaika Mihambo in top form, for example, would definitely have had a chance of winning the world title, which the Serbian Ivana Vuleta secured with 7.14 meters. However, Mihambo had to forego the title fights after a torn muscle fiber.

Johannes Vetter is currently working on his comeback

The situation is even more blatant in the men’s javelin throw, where the Indian Neeraj Chopra won the gold medal with 88.17 meters – a distance that until a while ago could only make Johannes Vetter smile wearily.

Cousin without precise diagnosis

The German record holder (97.76 meters) regularly flew the javelin over 90 meters until two years ago and was the absolute dominator of the scene at that time. His winning streak was broken at the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2021 when he couldn’t cope with the soft runway.

When Vetter was eager for revenge in 2022, his shoulder no longer cooperated and an agonizingly long period of suffering began. The now 30-year-old had to miss the 2022 World Cup in Eugene and the home European Championships in Munich, as well as the 2023 title fights in Budapest.

However, giving up is not an option for Vetter, even if there is still no precise diagnosis for his shoulder problems. Nevertheless, the LG Offenburg athlete is optimistic that he will not lose sight of his big goal: the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.

“I am currently in the off-season and am already working hard in physiotherapy,” explains Vetter to SPORT1. “There are many speculations as to where it could have come from. It is certainly also a control problem and the pain over the last year and a half has made the problem even worse. But at the moment we are in good spirits.”

“We want to get back into throwing quickly”

Vetter’s schedule for Paris is already in rough outline, as he reveals. “I will soon be planning a three-week holiday, after which training will begin bit by bit. We want to work on the javelin relatively quickly and get back into throwing quickly.”

A training camp in South Africa is planned for “late November, early December”.

Johannes Vetter missed the World Cup in Budapest

In the best case scenario, you will already know where the journey is going in winter. “We will take it one step at a time and hopefully we can see results as quickly as possible.”

In order to regain competitive toughness, Vetter wants to return to this mode as early as possible. “If everything goes well, I want to compete in competitions quite early on. But that depends on the shoulder and my performance.”

It would be desirable if Vetter’s plans worked. Not just for himself, but for all of German athletics.

1694608406
#horror #years #German #star #making #comeback #plans

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.