Sven Lang: Mission two world titles (Storl and Schwanitz)

National coach Sven Lang makes no secret that the goal of his shot put training group are two world titles in Beijing. David Storl and European Champion Christina Schwanitz are, despite the high physical loads, looking forward to Beijing with clear goals. Within the video at the end David Storl's 21.94m toss can be seen, with which he scratched for the umpteenth time on the 22-meter mark.

"Quality comes from torturing it is often in sports". For David Storl even with a double meaning. Because in addition to the daily grind in training even he still has to bother with this intractable pain in his left knee.

David Storl

"I have to take quite a lot of painkillers. But it is not the case that other throwers do anything different. Somehow, it is a bit stressful. In training, it always hurts. And during competition it can get even worse if the technique is not perfect. But somehow the show must go on."

Due to knee problems David Storl has changed his technique. Now he slides a bit deeper and tosses the ball standing technique. In order to avoid pain during the throw he avoid nowaydays to jump to make the throw valid. And yet he is currently better than ever before it. Only the 22m David has not cracked yet. Not even at Schönebecker SoleCup weekend. He remained with 21.94m just barely below the magic border.

David Storl:

"This is of course annoying. Now I do not know of how many competitions I ended already under 22m. And as you could see in the last round, which was quite far, it is highly possible. But it's just simply ... It kinda sucks that the 22m has not happened yet."

Also at a high level is European Champion Christina Schwanitz. Her current personal best of 20.77m lets her even dream about the world champion title in August. But Christina is not free of symptoms either, but can sees the problems from a positiv side.

Christina Schwanitz:

"Whether this is actually an advantage when one is perfectly healthy I do not know. Because than one is not very focused on it. The fact that we have to go a detour every now and then, it is not the stated goal: I have do achieve this. But I have a lot of options, many roads lead to Rome. And that makes it even more exciting of course."

National coach Sven Lang trained the two and is satisfied with the level of performance despite the problems of his athletes. Therefore does not deviate even from his goal.

Sven Lang:

"I do not make a secret out of it. Ultimately, the goal in our training group is to become both world champion in the shot put. Whether this succeeds is another matter. But the objective is simply there and is certainly also very realistic."

Thus, even if on the health front things do not go quite optimal. For the World Championships, it may go in entirely new spheres.

http://www.ardmediathek.de/goto/tv/29309596