Anouk Vetter (; born 4 February 1993) is a Dutch track and field athlete who competes in the

combined events Combined track and field events are competitions in which athletes participate in a number of track and field events, earning points for their performance in each event, which adds to a total points score. Outdoors, the most common combined events ...

. She won the silver medal in the

heptathlon A heptathlon is a track and field combined events contest made up of seven events. The name derives from the Greek επτά (hepta, meaning "seven") and ἄθλος (áthlos, or ἄθλον, áthlon, meaning "competition"). A competitor in a hept ...

at the

2020 Tokyo Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

. Vetter claimed bronze and silver in the event at the

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

and

2022 World Athletics Championships The 2022 World Athletics Championships was the eighteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships. It was held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, United States, from July 15–24, 2022, with the country hosting that competition for the f ...

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

Anouk Vetter was on born 4 February 1993 in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. 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.Patience reaps dividends in Vetter's rise through the heptathlon ranks
International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 19 December 2017

Career

Her passion became the

. However, her frail body was susceptible to injury. She failed to finish a heptathlon at either the

2011 European Athletics Junior Championships The 21st European Athletics Junior Championships were held between 21 and 24 July 2011 in the Kadriorg Stadium in Tallinn, Estonia. Russia topped the medal table with 18 medals overall, including 8 golds, ahead of Germany and Great Britain. Men's ...

2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics The 2012 World Junior Championships in Athletics was an international athletics competition for athletes qualifying as juniors (born 1993 or later) which was held at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, on 10–15 ...

and the

2013 European Athletics U23 Championships The 2013 European Athletics U23 Championships was the 9th edition of the biennial athletics competition between European athletes under the age of twenty-three. It was held in Tampere, Finland from 10 to 14 July. Russia topped the medal table with ...

. 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. She won the Multistars Firenze Trofeo Zerneri Acciai, the opening meeting of the 2013 IAAF Combined Events Challenge with 5872 points.Krauchanka and Vetter triumph in Florence – IAAF Combined Events Challenge
International Association of Athletics Federations - IAAF, 3 May 2013 140601-061 Anouk Vetter - 2014

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." Later that year she finished seventh at the Zürich European Championships. In 2015, Vetter finished sixth at the Hypo-Meeting with a new personal best with 6458 points, and won the heptathlon at the Mehrkampf-Meeting in

Ratingen Ratingen ( li, Rotinge) is a town in the district of Mettmann in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It lies in the northwestern part of Berg about 12 km northeast of Düsseldorf. Administration With a communal reform of 1975 the independent mu ...

, Germany. Despite an injury, she also competed in the heptathlon event at the

2015 World Championships in Athletics The 2015 IAAF World Championships ( zh, 第十五届世界田径锦标赛), the fifteenth edition of the IAAF World Championships, were held from 22 to 30 August at the National Stadium in Beijing, China. Forty-three nations won medals, 144 of ...

in Beijing, where she reached the 12th place with 6267 points. "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.

European champion

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 Dafne Schippers (; born 15 June 1992) is a Dutch track and field athlete. She competes primarily in the sprints, having previously participated in the heptathlon. She is the 2015 and 2017 World Champion and won silver at the 2016 Summer Olym ...

. "To win that European title was amazing," she remembered. "Suddenly I was out of the shadow of the big girls." At the

2016 Rio Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

, however, she finished on a disappointing 10th place. She started the 2017 outdoor season with a seventh place in Götzis. 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 Carolin Schäfer (born 5 December 1991) is a German athlete who specialises in the heptathlon. She won the silver medal in the event at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics. Schäfer took bronze at the 2018 European Athletics Championships. ...

(silver). She concluded the season with a win at the heptathlon at the Décastar in Talence, France. For the second year in a row she finished second in the IAAF Combined Events Challenge. At the 2018 Hypo-Meeting in Götzis, Vetter finished fourth behind Nafissatou Thiam, Yorgelis Rodriguez and

Erica Bougard Erica Marsha Bougard (born July 26, 1993) is an American heptathlete. She was NCAA indoor champion in 2013 and represented the United States at the 2013 World Championships. Biography Erica Bougard was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but grew up i ...

. 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."Vetter: little goals, big results
World Athletics, 14 March 2021

Come back

In 2021, Vetter made her come back winning the silver medal at the postponed

in Japan, with a new national record, behind Nafissatou Thiam who successfully defended her 2016 Olympic title. She led through the first day before Thiam and after world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson had to leave the competition due to an injury. 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. Later that year, she won silver at the World Championships in

Eugene Eugene may refer to: People and fictional characters * Eugene (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Eugene (actress) (born 1981), Kim Yoo-jin, South Korean actress and former member of the sin ...

(USA) with yet another national record. She led the contest until the last event, when Thiam surpassed her.Thiam regains world heptathlon title in Oregon
World Athletics, 18 July 2022 In August at the Munich European Championships she had to withdraw from the competition due to an Achilles tendon injury.

Statistics

International competitions

Personal bests

Circuit wins

World Athletics Combined Events Tour The World Athletics Combined Events Tour (formerly IAAF Combined Events Challenge and World Athletics Challenge – Combined Events) is an annual series of combined track and field events meetings, organised since 1998 by World Athletics, with he ...

** 2013: Multistars ** 2015: Mehrkampf-Meeting ** 2017: Décastar ** 2022: Hypo-Meeting ()

National titles

Dutch Athletics Championships The Dutch Athletics Championships ( nl, Nederlandse kampioenschappen atletiek) is an annual outdoor track and field competition organised by the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation, which serves as the national championship for the sport in the Neth ...

** Long jump: 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 ** Javelin throw: 2019 *

Dutch Indoor Athletics Championships The Dutch Indoor Athletics Championships ( nl, Nederlandse kampioenschappen indooratletiek) is an annual indoor track and field competition organised by the Royal Dutch Athletics Federation, which serves as the national championship for the sport ...

** Long jump: 2016, 2021, 2022

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vetter, Anouk 1993 births 21st-century Dutch women Athletes from Amsterdam Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Dutch Athletics Championships winners Dutch heptathletes Dutch Indoor Athletics Championships winners European Athletics Championships medalists Living people Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes for the Netherlands Olympic heptathletes Olympic silver medalists for the Netherlands Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field) World Athletics Championships athletes for the Netherlands World Athletics Championships medalists