+++ PRESS RELEASE INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe 2019 +++ Shining silver at the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe Kristin Gierisch and Fabian Heinle promise great jumps Philipp Schätzle Light athletics fans certainly love remembering the European Championship this Telefon: 0721 782045-260 summer in Berlin. The German athletes also thrilled the spectators at this highest level E-Mail: [email protected] of sport. The INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe will continue to be this thrilling. It’s th celebrating its 35 Meeting this year, making it the indoor meeting with the longest Karlsruhe, 5. Dezember 2018 tradition in Europe. Sports Director Alain Blondel is giving it a new shine, aligning the sports disciplines to the German athletes’ success at the continental title matches: “Of course we make sure that we can present medal winners at the INDOOR MEETING. Among other things, we’ve got the Women’s Triple Jump, Men’s Long Jump, but also the Men’s High Jump in the programme. We’ve also included the Women’s Sprint Hurdles.” There is great enthusiasm for the light athletics spectacle on 2 February 2019 in trade-fair hall 3. “The run on the tickets is massive – now, two months before the INDOOR MEETING, we only have just under 500 tickets available. Category 1 is almost completely sold out”, says a delighted Martin Wacker, manager of the organisers: Karlsruhe Marketing und Event GmbH. “The IAAF World Indoor Tour, with Karlsruhe as its second stop, certainly gives us a great advantage. It was the right step to increase the capacity to 5,000 seats.” Traditionally, the time to present the top athletes at the INDOOR MEETING starts on St Nicholas Day. This year, two guest Berlin silver medal winners were presented at the press conference in the Sparkasse Karlsruhe: Kristin Gierisch and Fabian Heinle. Karlsruhe is not a bad place for Kristin Gierisch. Gierisch, who was born in Zwickau and trains in Chemnitz, has been German Triple jump Indoor Champion here twice. The police officer won the title in both 2012 in the Europahalle and 2015 in the Messehalle. She can also celebrate international success: like the last time in Berlin when she had to be the first competitor in the European Championship finals and shocked the competition with a 14.45 metre jump. This meant a personal top performance for Gierisch and the silver medal. The 27-year old now only needs 12 centimetres to match the German Open-Air record set by Katja Demut (14.57 metres) and she has her sights on this too, with a 14.47-metre jump in the hall, only a centimetre away from the mark. Her top indoor performance is 14.46 metres and she has stood on the international podium twice here. She gained the title at the 2017 Indoor European Athletics Indoor Championship in Belgrade and a year before she was runner-up in Portland. Winning the silver medal in Berlin was the greatest success in Fabian Heinle’s career up to now. The young man from Böblingen, who trains with VfB Stuttgart, landed at 8.13 metres twice. He only just outperformed the Ukrainian Sergeji Nyfykorov, who also jumped this distance but fell short of Böblingen in his second-longest attempt. Heinle’s career has been continually interrupted by injuries but even a twice-torn ligament in January 2014 didn’t throw him off track. A year later, he jumped over the 8-metre line for the first time in Weinheim at the end of May and a week later he made his longest jump up to now at 8.25 metres in Oberteuringen. In the same year he became a German Champion for the first time in Nuremburg and he won the Under-23s European Championship title in Talinn. After being forced to take a string of breaks due to stubborn back problems in 2017, he succeeded in winning his second German Champion title in Nuremburg (8.03 metres) with a superb comeback, which was then crowned with the silver medal in Berlin. While Heinle exceed eight metres in open air competition, he still lacks a jump over this mark in the indoor competitions. His top indoor jump is 7.81 metres, which he made as third in the 2015 German Indoor Championships in Karlsruhe. He took fifth place at the INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe in the same year. Perhaps there will also be a success for him in the hall at the Meeting on 2 February 2019, with Heinle’s first jump over eight metres. Philipp Schätzle Telefon: 0721 782045-260 Such an 8-metre jump would certainly be a good starting position for the fight for the E-Mail: [email protected] discipline victory in the IAAF World Indoor Tour, which has the long jump in its programme this year. Karlsruhe, 5. Dezember 2018 The World Association indoor tour has a total of six Meetings, with athletes competing for points in their discipline, 20,000 US dollars in victory prizes, as well as a wild card for the Indoor World Championship 2020 in Nanjing, China. This time, Karlsruhe will be the second tour stop after Boston, USA (26 January). Then, the athletes go from Torun, Poland (6 February), Madrid, Spain (8 February), and Birmingham, Great Britain (16 February) to Düsseldorf (20 February) and the Tour Finale. The Karlsruhe light athletics spectators can look forward to the Women’s 60 Metres, 3,000 Metres, as well as the Pole Vault. In addition, the Triple Jump is returning to Karlsruhe after 13 years – within the tour and for the first time in the trade-fair hall. Additionally, there is also the 60 Metre Hurdles. The men are doing the 400 Metres, 1,500 Metres, as well as the Long Jump and High jump while also competing in the 800 Metres. The visitors to the INDOOR MEETINGs 2019 can look forward to disciplines in which the German light athlete’s elite collected many precious metals at the European Championships this August in Berlin. Tickets for the 35th INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe on 2 February 2019 are available at the Tourist-Information Karlsruhe, Bahnhofplatz 6, 76137 Karlsruhe, by Ticket Telephone under 0721 25000, and online via www.ticketmaster.de. www.meeting-karlsruhe.de www.facebook.com/IndoorMeetingKarlsruhe www.twitter.com/INDOOR_MEETING www.instagram.com/indoormeetingkarlsruhe IAAF World Indoor Tour 2019 Stops: 26.01.2019: New Balance Indoor Grand Prix (Boston, USA) 02.02.2019: INDOOR MEETING Karlsruhe (GER) 06.02.2019: Copernicus Cup (Torun, POL) 08.02.2019: Madrid Indoor Meeting (ESP) 16.02.2019: Müller Indoor Grand Prix (Birmingham, GBR) 20.02.2019: 13th International PSD Bank Meeting (Düsseldorf, GER) .