Claudia Marx

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Claudia Marx (born September 16, 1978 in Berlin , GDR) is a former German athlete who has been a successful 400-meter runner since the mid-1990s . After she almost had to end her career after an accident in 1998, she was later able to take part in competitions again. Her greatest successes are the relay silver medal in the 4 x 400 meter relay race at the 2001 World Championships and the relay gold medal at the 2002 European Championships .

Beginnings

Claudia Marx was born on September 16, 1978 in Berlin into a sports-loving family. Her father Wolfram Marx was a Berlin high jump champion, mother Regina played in the GDR basketball team. Marx started athletics at an early age, at the age of fourteen she started at SV Preußen Berlin in 1993. At the beginning of July 1993 she surprisingly came second at the German B youth championships in Dortmund. She ran the 300 meters in 40.01 s. In addition, she was third in both 1993 and 1994 in the all-around competition of the B youth. Their great success ensured that Marx was appointed to the squad for the Junior World Championships in Sydney in 1996. In the run-up to the title fights, she suffered a stress fracture, which is why she only traveled as a substitute member. She only competed in the preliminary stages, but still got a gold medal after winning the 4 x 400 meter relay from Müller, Gesell, Harstick and Urbansky . Her trainer Bernd Knobloch then prepared her for the Junior European Championships in 1997, where she finished fifth in the individual race over 400 meters and won the bronze medal with the 4 x 400 meter relay.

accident

On May 20, 1998, Marx, along with her trainer Knobloch and the hurdler Aljoscha Nemitz, was pushed off the road on the autobahn, breaking six ribs and sinking one lung. In the hospital, she was ventilated for three days to allow the lungs to stabilize. After her life was out of danger, it only looked like her career was over. She started doing small physical exercises in the hospital and completed a rehabilitation program lasting several months. Two months after the accident, she started running again and continued her career in competitive sports in 1999. In the course of this year she increased her personal best over 400 meters by one second to 52.26 seconds.

Continuation of the career

The highlight of 1999 for Marx, however, was the U23 European Championships, where she won the silver medal with the relay. At the indoor and outdoor world championships, she was only a substitute for the relay. After Marx crashed in the final of the European Indoor Championships in Gent after a bump by Bulgarian Daniela Georgiewa and was unable to finish the race, the rest of the season was also unhappy. In addition, a cartilage damage in the knee prevented her participation in the Olympic Games in Sydney . The following year she went uphill again, at the World Indoor Championships in Lisbon she won the bronze medal with the 4 x 400 meter relay, at the World Championships in Edmonton she was even able to get the silver medal with the relay after the relay of United States unfortunately lost its staff in the run.

In 2002 things went up and down for her again. At the European Cup in Annecy, she competed despite a bad cold and had to be content with the last place. The next day she reached second place with the relay, but fell unhappy when changing baton and broke her jaw. As a result, she missed the German Championships, but was fit again in time for the European Championships in Munich . Despite her lack of training, together with Florence Ekpo-Umoh , Birgit Rockmeier and Grit Breuer , she was the first to cross the finish line in the final before Russia and to achieve the gold medal.

After the successes of the past years, things went steadily downhill in 2003 and 2004. The season started promisingly with the silver medal at the 1st Indoor European Cup in Leipzig with the 1-2-3-4 round relay. But already at the World Championships in Paris / Saint-Denis , she had to bury her hope in sixth place in the 400 meters. With the 4 x 400 meter relay, she finished fourth, three seconds behind the podium. Even the extremely successful season could not boast at the Olympic Games in Athens and was eliminated after the preliminary run. Claudia Marx was again German indoor champion over 400 meters in 2005, but finally switched to the hurdle track in the summer.

Hurdles

Claudia Marx had already moved from Berlin to Dresden in 2004 to start again on the hurdle route with Dietmar Jarosch. In June 2005, Marx ran a race over 400 meter hurdles for the first time . At the European Cup she was third and at the World Championships in Helsinki she made it to the semi-finals. With the season she reached sixth place in the final. In 2006 she finished fourth at the European Championships in Gothenburg , her greatest individual success. As the final runner in the 4 x 400 meter relay, she then reached fifth place.

After several protracted injuries, which cost her participation in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and the 2009 Home World Championships in Berlin, Claudia Marx made a small comeback in 2010 in the jersey of the Dresden Sports Club 1898. Although she decided not to race because of her injury history the hurdles, but she managed to run into third place in the 400 meter individual race at the German Championships in Braunschweig. With the 4 x 400 meter relay, she also achieved second place. On July 18, 2010, the day after the championships, Claudia Marx announced her retirement from competitive sports. Her best times are 51.41 s over 400 meters from 2001 and 54.80 s over the hurdles course set up in Gothenburg in 2006.

trainer

Marx is national trainer for the German Athletics Association.

Private

Marx studied sports science at the Humboldt University in Berlin . She lives in Dresden and has a daughter.

Web links

swell

  • Biography of the sportswoman on www.munzinger.de

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian Fuchs: Claudia Marx ends career . Deutsche Leichtathletik Promotion- und Projektgesellschaft mbH - www.leichtathletik.de. July 18, 2010. Retrieved July 19, 2010.
  2. ↑ Sächsische Zeitung September 12, 2019, p. 11
personal data
SURNAME Marx, Claudia
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German athlete
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1978
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin