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| Nadine Müller showed her form at the European Cup Winter Throwing last weekend with a personal best throw of 64.30m. |
In an interview with the German athletics federation website www.leichtathletik.de the 24-year-old from Halle, who was sixth at last summer's World Championships on home soil in Berlin, talked about her success on Saturday and her ambitions now.
German athletics federation: At the beginning of the year, you targeted the European Cup Winter Throwing as the place to set a new personal best, so you must be happy?
Nadine Müller: It was only with my last attempt that I managed to set a personal best. If I had not succeeded, I would have been disappointed. However, in the end, the competition turned out perfectly.
What expectations did you have before actually travelling to the competition?
Two weeks earlier I had been in a training camp on the Cote d'Azur, and had been throwing well. So I was looking to throw around the area of my previous best performance of 63.46m.
In Arles, you comfortably defeated people such as Russia's former Olympic champion Natalya Sadova and Romania's 2009 World Championships bronze medallist Nicoleta Grasu. No other athlete threw more than 60 metres there. Did you expect the competition to be so easy?
It was actually very windy. At the beginning nobody at all could really cope. Everybody was struggling but I suppose I was just a little bit lucky that I could throw so well.
You already had the competition won before your final throw. Was the fact that you were relaxed the key factor in your big throw?
I had first place and I had also met the European Athletics Championships qualifying standard, which I hadn't really thought about before. All I wanted to show with my last attempt was simply a good throw.
What does victory in the European Cup Winter Throwing meeting mean to you?
It was a nice ending for the winter. It's a good way of assessing where you stand against your European rivals. I do not want to train all the winter and then wait until the summer and to see where I stand, that is why the competition in Arles, and another competition I was able to compete in this winter, is important. Otherwise, the length of time without a competition is simply too big for me.
What are your plans now?
I am flying to Albufeira in Portugal for two weeks then when I come back in early May I'll start competing. My first competition is on 8 May in Wiesbaden. If everything works out well, then I figure I might have a medal chance at the European Athletics Championships (which will