Decathlete Neugebauer on his way to the Olympics: A lot learned from the World Championships
The German decathlon record holder Leo Neugebauer has learned from the World Championship decathlon without a medal for the Olympic Games. "I've thought a lot about how everything went. Of course I can't be dissatisfied with the season because I achieved a lot of good things. I wanted the medal at the World Championships, that would have been a nice end to the season," said the 23-year-old track and field athlete in an interview with Sport1.
"But I also believe that I was able to learn a lot from all the mistakes I made on the second day. The most important thing for me is to take this into the next season so that I can perform better - especially at the Olympic Games," said the athlete from VfB Stuttgart. He recently moved there from his home club LG Leinfelden-Echterdingen. However, he is studying economics at one of America's athletics strongholds, the University of Texas in Austin, on a full scholarship.
Neugebauer had fallen behind the medal ranks at the World Championships in the summer after leading at half-time and finished fifth. "I've never had as much pressure as I did at the World Championships. Simply because I went into the competition as the best athlete of the year. There were a lot of expectations of me. But I think I handled it pretty well," said Neugebauer.
"The second day was a bit chaotic, but I learned from it. Nevertheless, I would say that I handled the pressure pretty well. Now that I've had a bit of a taste of what it feels like to have so much pressure, I'll go into the Olympics more relaxed and with more experience. I think that can be a good thing," said the decathlete.
A few weeks before the World Championships, Neugebauer had improved Jürgen Hingsen's German record to 8836 points. He believes the magical 9000-point mark is possible. "I think that's definitely possible. If you add up all my best performances, you're already well over 9,000 points. Of course, you can never expect to always achieve your best performance," he said. He is "pretty confident that I will reach the goal again at some point in my career. It's just a question of when."
Despite his fifth-place finish at the World Championships, VfB Stuttgart's decathlete Leo Neugebauer sees opportunities for improvement in the Decathlon for the upcoming Olympic Games. Nurturing his experiences from the World Championships, especially the mistakes made during the second day, will help him perform better in the future competitions.
Source: www.dpa.com
