European Championships 2006 Report 

European Championships 2006: Report and pictures

From  1st of Mai till 7th the 85th  Men's European championships and 19th women's  competitions were being held  in Poland.

These championships were organized in the Olympic trainingcenter COS Cetniewo Wladyslawowo at the southern coast of the Baltic Sea (about 60km from Gdansk).

Competitors, coaches  and officials were lodged in bungalows or the hotel in the sports center or hotels just outside. The training hall and the competition hall were also in the same domain, so everybody was lodged within walking distance.  

	The bungalow block in which many athletes were lodged
	The competition and training hall, as well as the lodging, were all in the  Cetniewo  Olympic trainingcentre   (COS), located directly in a park on the coast and sandy beaches of the Baltic sea.
	The Baltic coastline in front of the center.

Most of the competitions were quite interesting. Since the doping controls are more severe the density of the results is much higher, with a lot more medal candidates than before. Countries like France and  Spain are now sometimes mixing in the fights with the eastern European countries. In my class the gold medal snatch was only 1.5 kg more than my national record! But the 10th place was only 14 kg less.   
There were 134 male competitors and 73 female.
Full results  on the official web page   

This was my 8th senior European championship and my 214th competition ever.  
After a very strong preparation and 125+148 result  in March already I have been seriously disturbed by a knee injury. Because of a rupture of my patella tendon I couldn't do anymore heavy lifts in the last month so I didn't know at all if I could make a reasonable result. 
My first goal was to make  top 6 cause that was the result demanded by the Olympic committee and  BLOSO. As my financial support depends on them it was very important.   

 
Like last years I started in the A-group and those who watched Eurosport TV could follow my lifts.
I weighed in at 61.4 and looking at the announced start weights we believed that a snatch result a little over 120 would be sufficient to reach that top 6.  So we started low wit an easy opener of 118kg snatch. Also the second lift with 122 kg was successful. At a certain moment it seemed that 126 kg could be a bronze medal snatch so we decided to go for it. I caught the weight quite high but couldn't fix it and lost it in the end.    
As I hadn't been cleaning in squat for a long time I started the jerk with a very low 142 kg. It was extremely light but I lost the balance in squat and had to drop it to my great disappointment. The second attempt passed really easy so I thought to go for 150 kg but my coaches thought it was too risky cause if I missed the Bulgarian only needed 147 kg to remove me from 6th spot. So I jerked 145 kg in the third attempt. The coaches proved right, 150 kg was too heavy for the Bulgarian and my 6th place was a fact. 

In the snatch I ended 5th and in 6th in the Jerk. My  total of 267 kg (61.4 kg) brought me 6th place.  It was only satisfying in the view of my sixth place needed for my financial support. Personally I was still a bit disappointed cause more would have been possible. If I had kept my 126 snatch or if I jerked 150 I would have taken 5th place in total. Moreover 150 kg jerk would have given me 4th place in jerk and it is a weight that I usually master quite often. My best snatch of 128 kg was the bronze medal.  If I wouldn't have been injured, equaling or breaking my national record of 277 kg total would have been realistic and that would have been 4th place overall. 
But a sportsmen also has to accept injuries as a part of the game and I can only hope to be in top shape at the world championships. 
I reached a moderate 387.5 Sinclair points, which placed me 74th on all 134 participants.

 Note June 2006: Russian European champion -62 kg got disqualified for failing the doping test (together with eleven other athletes. I moved up one place to 5th!

Enjoy also my pictures: 

There were two training halls with each about 14 platforms.  

  

		The traininghall
		My father and coach next to former weightlifting champion David Morgan, now co-commentating for Eurosport.
		One of my last training sessions before the competition.

The warm up room was very big. 

 

The competition hall was nice but small. The advantage of a small hall is that the atmosphere is better but at some times people had to stand.  

Competition pictures taking by René Deville from Luxemburg (Thanks for that!)

 

	On the picture of the -62 kg A-group you can see how tall I am ;-)
	My second attempt snatch wit 122 kg.
	Concentrating for 145 kg clean and jerk.
	A successful 145 kg jerk.

Some action pictures:

 

	Kasaj Fetie from Albania made a remarkable progress moving up from 53 to 58 kg class and raising her last years total with 42 kg to 227 kg!  She conquered the silver medal with this performance.
	Oleshouk Genady made a noticed come back winning the 69 kg class with a new European record and making the best overall sinclair result of 470 points. Before his two year ban he already cleaned the world record in the 62 kg class.  Already at 62 kg his muscularity was amazing. Now he even had more muscle mass. Note june 2006: He failed the doping test again and was disqualified.
	The French newcomer Benjamin Hennequin, reaching 5th place in -85 kg in his first European seniors.

After competition there was a small time to enjoy the surroundings ...

 

	Finnish Katariina Vestman (-69 kg) together with the Polish bronze medal winner Dominika Misterska.
	Katariina with the silver medal winner -75 kg , Valentina ¨Popova from Russia.
	Finnish coach Juhamatti Eskelinen and me visiting the beach.