11th June 2012 09:02
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| World shot put champion David Storl of Germany. |
The highlight was, without a doubt, becoming the youngest ever gold medallist in his event at the World Championships but he was also a winner at the 2011 European Athletics U23 Championships, taking the title in the Czech city of Ostrava with a championship record of 20.45m and finishing more than a metre clear of his nearest rival.
Now he wants to add to his burgeoning gold medal collection – he now has five victories in global or continental championships – by also winning at the 2012 European Athletics Championships, which will be held in Helsinki between 27 June and 1 July.
European Athletics YouTube channel caught up with the German prodigy on the sidelines of the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava on 25 May.
'A gold medal from the European Athletics Championships is one of the things that I'm missing from major international outdoor competitions and so I'll be especially motivated to do as well as I can in Helsinki,' said Storl.
'But I'm not going to say that I'll win, I don't want to put that pressure on myself, and there are a lot of other good European throwers who will be wanting to do well; I'm sure Andrey Mikhnevich (from Belarus) will want to defend his title and he will not let it go easily,' added Storl.
Moldova's 2011 Athlete of the Year hammer thrower Zalina Marghieva, who caused a big upset when she beat Russia's reigning world champion and former world record holder Tatyana Lysenko, the former adding more than half-a-metre onto her national record with 73.60m at the European Cup Winter Throwing in Bar, Montenegro, earlier this year, also talked about how she plans to beat an extremely strong women's field in Helsinki.
Click on the links below to view the brief interviews with the two athletes on European Athletics YouTube Channel.
David Storl
Zalina Marghieva