Anouk Vetter

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Anouk Vetter
Vetter at the 2016 European Athletics Championships in Amsterdam
Personal information
Born (1993-02-04) 4 February 1993 (age 31)[1]
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Height1.77 m (5 ft 10 in)[2]
Weight65 kg (143 lb)[1]
Websitewww.anoukvetter.nl
Sport
CountryNetherlands
SportAthletics
Event(s)Heptathlon, Pentathlon
ClubAV Sprint[3]
Medal record
Women's athletics
Representing the  Netherlands
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 2020 Tokyo Heptathlon
World Championships
Silver medal – second place 2022 Eugene Heptathlon
Bronze medal – third place 2017 London Heptathlon
Bronze medal – third place 2023 Budapest Heptathlon
European Championships
Gold medal – first place 2016 Amsterdam Heptathlon

Anouk Vetter (Dutch pronunciation: [aːˈnuk ˈfɛtər]; born 4 February 1993) is a Dutch track and field athlete who competes in the combined events.

She won the silver medal in the heptathlon at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Vetter claimed bronze and silver in the event at the 2017 and 2022 World Athletics Championships respectively. She took the gold medal at the 2016 European Championships.

She is the Dutch record holder for the heptathlon with a score 6867 points, and won eight national titles (mostly for the long jump).

Early life

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Anouk Vetter was on born 4 February 1993 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.[3]

Vetter was exposed to athletics at a very young age. Her father, Ronald Vetter, is a long-standing athletics coach and her mother, Gerda Vetter-Blokziel a two-time Dutch javelin champion. "I grew up on the track, running around from the age of four and five playing on the high jump mat," she recalls.[4]

Career

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Her passion became the heptathlon. However, her frail body was susceptible to injury. She failed to finish a heptathlon at either the 2011 European Athletics Junior Championships, 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics and the 2013 European Athletics U23 Championships. After replacing her coach in 2012 with her father, she decreased her training to 80 per cent compared to the other women in the combined event group to protect her fragile body.[4] She won the Multistars Firenze Trofeo Zerneri Acciai, the opening meeting of the 2013 IAAF Combined Events Challenge with 5872 points.[5]

Vetter in action at the 2014 Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria.

Her breakthrough came in 2014 when she improved her previous personal best by a massive 444 points to 6316 points at that year's prestigious Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Austria to place ninth. "Gotzis was really special," she remembered. "It is always fantastic to compete there because the crowd is so close to the track."[6] Later that year she finished seventh at the Zürich European Championships.[4]

In 2015, Vetter finished sixth at the Hypo-Meeting with a new personal best with 6458 points,[7] and won the heptathlon at the Mehrkampf-Meeting in Ratingen, Germany.[4][8] Despite an injury, she also competed in the heptathlon event at the 2015 World Championships in Athletics in Beijing, where she reached the 12th place with 6267 points.[4] "Bearing in mind I didn’t think I could even start the competition, mentally it was a really big step for me," she reflected later.[4]

European champion

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She started the 2016 season with an eighth place at the Hypo-Meeting. In July, Vetter took a surprise victory at the European Championships heptathlon in her home town Amsterdam, with a score of 6626 points, an improvement of the national record of Dafne Schippers.[9][10] "To win that European title was amazing," she remembered. "Suddenly I was out of the shadow of the big girls."[4] At the 2016 Rio Olympics, however, she finished on a disappointing 10th place.[11]

Vetter (R) races the heptathlon 800 m at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics held in London.

She started the 2017 outdoor season with a seventh place in Götzis.[12] In August 2017, Vetter set a new national heptathlon record of 6636 points at the World Championships in London, where she won the bronze medal, behind 2016 Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam (gold) and Carolin Schäfer (silver).[13] She concluded the season with a win at the heptathlon at the Décastar in Talence, France.[14] For the second year in a row she finished second in the IAAF Combined Events Challenge.[15]

At the 2018 Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Vetter finished fourth behind Nafissatou Thiam, Yorgelis Rodriguez and Erica Bougard.[16] At the European Championships in Berlin she finished fifth place. The year 2019 was a difficult period in her career, due to injuries and doubts with the sport. She did not finish the combined events competitions at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow, the Decastar in Talence and the World Championships in Doha. Depressed she did not start at the final event, the 800 meters. "I had physical injuries with my knee," she later explained. "But it was more than that. I was putting too much pressure on myself. I had a hard time enjoying athletics, and I had a battle inside my head."[17]

Come back

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Hepthathlon world medallists at Oregon 2022 (L–R): Anouk Vetter (6867 pts), Nafi Thiam (6947 pts) and Anna Hall (6755 pts).

In 2021, Vetter made her come back winning the silver medal at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in Japan, with a new national record, behind Nafissatou Thiam who successfully defended her 2016 Olympic title.[18] She led through the first day before Thiam and after world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson had to leave the competition due to an injury.[19]

In May 2022, she won the Hypo-Meeting in Götzis with a new national record after setting a meet record in the javelin throw of 59.81 m.[20] Later that year, she won silver at the World Championships in Eugene (USA) with yet another national record. She led the contest until the last event, when Thiam surpassed her.[21] In August at the Munich European Championships she had to withdraw from the competition due to an Achilles tendon injury.

Statistics

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International competitions

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Representing the  Netherlands
Year Competition Venue Position Event Result
2009 European Youth Olympic Festival Tampere, Finland – (f) 4 × 100 m relay DNF
– (f) Javelin throw DNS
2011 European Junior Championships Tallinn, Estonia Heptathlon DNF
2012 World Junior Championships Barcelona, Spain Heptathlon DNF
2013 European U23 Championships Tampere, Finland Heptathlon DNF
2014 European Championships Zürich, Switzerland 7th Heptathlon 6281 pts
2015 European Indoor Championships Prague, Czech Republic 8th Pentathlon 4548 pts
World Championships Beijing, China 12th Heptathlon 6267 pts
2016 European Championships Amsterdam, Netherlands 1st Heptathlon 6626 pts NR
Olympic Games Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 10th Heptathlon 6394 pts
2017 World Championships London, United Kingdom 3rd Heptathlon 6636 pts NR
2018 European Championships Berlin, Germany 5th Heptathlon 6414 pts
2019 European Indoor Championships Glasgow, United Kingdom Pentathlon DNF
World Championships Doha, Qatar Heptathlon DNF
2021 Olympic Games Tokyo, Japan 2nd Heptathlon 6689 pts NR
2022 World Championships Eugene, OR, United States 2nd Heptathlon 6867 pts NR
European Championships Munich, Germany Heptathlon DNF
2023 World Championships Budapest, Hungary 3rd Heptathlon 6501 pts
2024 Olympic Games Paris, France Heptathlon DNF

Personal bests

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Outdoor
Event Performance Points Venue Date Notes
100 m hurdles 13.09 s (w. -0.8) 1111 Tokyo, Japan 4 August 2021
High jump 1.81 m 991 Tampere, Finland 13 July 2013
Shot put 16.25 m 945 Eugene, OR, United States 17 July 2022
200 metres 23.65 s (w. +0.5) 1015 Götzis, Austria 29 May 2021
Long jump 6.52 m (w. +0.3) 1014 Eugene, OR, United States 18 July 2022
Javelin throw 59.81 m 1051 Götzis, Austria 29 May 2022
800 metres 2:17.71 min 855 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil 13 August 2016
Heptathlon 6867 pts PB total: 6982 Eugene, OR, United States 18 July 2022 NR
100 metres 11.61 s (w. +0.9) Mannheim, Germany 9 June 2016
Indoor
Event Performance Points Venue Date Notes
60 m hurdles 8.15 s 1095 Apeldoorn , Netherlands 27 February 2022
High jump 1.77 m 941 Prague, Czech Republic 6 March 2015
Shot put 15.45 m 891 Apeldoorn, Netherlands 27 February 2016
Long jump 6.42 m 981 Apeldoorn , Netherlands 20 February 2021
800 metres 2:24.48 min 764 Prague, Czech Republic 6 March 2015
Pentathlon 4548 pts PB total: 4672 Prague, Czech Republic 6 March 2015
60 metres 7.46 s Amsterdam, Netherlands 6 February 2016

Circuit wins

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National titles

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References

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  1. ^ a b Evans, Hilary; Gjerde, Arild; Heijmans, Jeroen; Mallon, Bill; et al. "Anouk Vetter". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Archived from the original on 8 November 2017. Retrieved 2 April 2023.
  2. ^ "VETTER Anouk | Paris 2024". olympics.com. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
  3. ^ a b (in Dutch) Anouk Vetter, Atletiek.nl. Retrieved 8 August 2017.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Patience reaps dividends in Vetter's rise through the heptathlon ranks, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 19 December 2017
  5. ^ Krauchanka and Vetter triumph in Florence – IAAF Combined Events Challenge, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 3 May 2013
  6. ^ That moment when… Vetter broke through, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 7 October 2017
  7. ^ (in Dutch) Brons voor meerkampster Broersen in Götzis, NOS News, 31 May 2015
  8. ^ Schrader and Vetter take the honours in Ratingen, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 28 June 2015
  9. ^ Vetter betters Schippers with third Dutch gold of the Championships, European Athletics, 9 July 2016
  10. ^ Vetter claims European heptathlon title with Dutch record, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 9 July 2016
  11. ^ (in Dutch) Vetter tiende op zevenkamp, Team NL, 14 August 2016
  12. ^ IAAF Combined Events Challenge Gotzis, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 28 May 2017
  13. ^ (in Dutch) Mark van Driel, "WK-brons mét Nederlands puntenrecord voor zevenkamper Anouk Vetter", de Volkskrant, 6 August 2017
  14. ^ Vetter concludes season with heptathlon victory in Talence, European Athletics, 18 September 2017
  15. ^ Freimuth and Schäfer win 2017 IAAF Combined Events Challenge, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 20 September 2017
  16. ^ World leads for Thiam and Warner in Gotzis, International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 27 May 2018
  17. ^ Vetter: little goals, big results, World Athletics, 14 March 2021
  18. ^ Thiam cements legendary status by retaining Olympic heptathlon title, World Athletics, 5 August 2021
  19. ^ Athletics-World champion Johnson-Thompson out injured, Vetter leads heptathlon, Reuters, 4 August 2021
  20. ^ Warner wins again, Vetter victorious in Götzis, World Athletics, 29 May 2022
  21. ^ Thiam regains world heptathlon title in Oregon, World Athletics, 18 July 2022
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