Ashia Hansen

Ashia Hansen , born Ashia Nana Koramdina (born December 5, 1971 in Evansville , Indiana , USA ) is a former British athlete . With a height of 1.70 m, her competition weight was 63 kg.

Life

Hansen was adopted by a British woman and her Ghanaian husband three months after she was born. She grew up in Ghana for the first six years of her life before her parents settled in London. She has been a member of the British national athletics team since 1994, and competes for England at the Commonwealth Games . She improved the British record in the triple jump ten times and set an indoor world record in 1998.

After Ashia Hansen failed in qualifying at the European Championships in 1994 and at the World Championships in 1995 , she made her breakthrough to the top in 1996. At the Olympic Games in Atlanta she was fifth with 14.49 m, but moved up one place after the disqualification of Bulgarian Iwa Prandschewa .

At the indoor world championships in 1997 she finished second behind the Russian Inna Lasovskaya with 14.70 m . In the same year she was with 14.49 m fifth at the world championships .

In 1998 Ashia Hansen won the European Indoor Championships with 15.16 m and forty centimeters ahead of the reigning world champion Šárka Kašpárková from the Czech Republic. At the Commonwealth Games 1998 she won with 14.32 m. She received another gold medal at the Indoor World Championships in 1999 when she won with 15.02 m in front of Prandschewa and Kašpárková. At the 1999 World Championships she tried a safety jump in the final after two invalid jumps, which, however, only resulted in 12th place with 13.39 m.

After an eleventh place at the 2000 Olympic Games and a seventh place at the 2001 World Championships , she returned to the top of the world in 2002. With 14.71 m she was second at the European Indoor Championships behind the Bulgarian Teresa Marinowa . This was followed by the victory at the Commonwealth Games in 2002 with 14.86 m and four centimeters ahead of Françoise Mbango Etone from Cameroon. At the European Championships in 2002 , she jumped 15.00 m (with too much tailwind) and became the first British female jumper since 1954 to win a European outdoor title.

At the World Indoor Championships in 2003 , Ashia Hansen managed to win another title. With 15.01 m she won ahead of Françoise Mbango Etone with 14.87 m.

In 2003 she was honored with the title MBE .

Personal best

• Long jump - 6.47 m (1996)
• Triple jump - 15.15 m (1997) indoors: 15.16 m (1998)

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 2005. SportsBooks, Cheltenham 2005, ISBN 1-899807-27-6 .