AN EŽKA DRAHOTOVÁ DOUBLE SILVER !!!! Anežka Drahotová won the silver medal in the fantastic women's 20km walking race at the European Championships in Berlin in 1: 27: 03 !! 

The women's 20km walk race at the European Championships in Berlin was postponed by almost two hours due to a gas leak and was finally started at the same time as the men's race. The women set off for the kilometer circuit together with the men at 10:50 am. The highest woman in the starting field, Anežka (183 cm), was not affected by the complications. On the contrary, she set the pace on the track and from the beginning she walked according to her notes. You went your way hard. No tactics, no hiding behind anyone. Agnes went to victory.

 Anežka kept on his forehead throughout the race. Very soon after the start, a group of about six members left the rest of the starting field, in which coach Ivo Piták's charges were also present. Right in the first half of the race, Anežka decided to make her first start, followed by more and more. Thanks to that, the front of the race was completely torn and only the Spaniard Perez and the Italian Palmisan were able to accept its pace. Another successful blockbuster at the 13th track dropped out of the leading trio, and Palmisanová and Anežka took the lead in this phase of the race, when she built up a smaller lead over the second second Perez! However, she reached the 16th kilometer again and during the next kilometer she detached herself from Anežka and only increased her lead to the finish line.

 Maria Perézová thus brought the race to a victorious end and became the European champion in the new recurrence of the championship 1: 26: 36h. Anežka Drahotová passed the finish line in the silver position in her seasonal maximum and the second best personal performance of 1: 27: 03 (Anežka's personal record and at the same time the Czech Republic's record is 1: 26: 53). Bronze was won by Antonella Palmisanová for the Italian colors in 1: 27.30. Fourth Lithuanian Brigida Virbalyte-Dimshiene could enjoy the new national record 1:27:59. The elite five was closed by her compatriot Živilé Vaiciukeviciuteová in the new national historical maximum of the under-22 category 1:28:07.

 After the bronze, which she won at the age of nineteen in 2014 in Zurich, Anežka Drahotová advanced one step higher. This year she has definitely overcome lingering health problems and she is a star again !!!!

"I'm very happy. I really wanted the medal. I have no other impression than that I'm really happy. The delayed start was a bit of a shock. We didn't know it would be almost two hours. First they told us twenty minutes, then forty. So I she always sat down, then we went straight, then to the toilet, I made such wheels, I was already nervous about it, I was peeing fifty times, I found kadibudku there, and then they told us we were going with the men. tent, Lukáš Gdula refreshed me, we made more forums, so it was good, I don't think it would affect the race, the atmosphere was really unreal, I didn't expect anything like that, the whole kilometer circuit was full of people, everyone cheered, it was unbelievable I was really well prepared, I felt that my body knew it was supposed to perform, that it saved all my strength. , and I wanted to make them happy, and I take that for grantedmission, to make walking a bit happy, to show Czech fans, for example, that it is not a marginal discipline, that it is quite nice to look at it "said Anežka at the finish.

The men's 20km race has become a Spanish affair. Surprisingly, the favored domestic racer Christopher Linke, whom we know very well from our Poděbrady and where he has managed to win several times, did not interfere in the order on the top positions. This time it was not like that and he reached the 13th place at 1: 22: 33. The Spaniard Alvaro Martin became the European Champion in 1:20:42 hours, ahead of the silver compatriot Diego Garcia 1:20:48 hours. Russian Vasily Mizinov climbed the bronze podium at 1 pm. The best of the domestic competitors became Nils Brembach in 20.50th place in 6: 1: 21h and in 15th place Hagen Pohle in 8: 1: 21h, who went very boldly more than half of the race at the very head of the whole race. 

Results with splits 20km walk men    Results with split 20km walk women