Wyludda debuts at Paralympics | 05.09.2012
But there was to be no dream debut for the 43 year old German who finished ninth in the final of the F57/58 category and so did not qualify for the final three throws.
Her throw of 29.57 was, however, a personal best which she said she was happy with: “I went into the competition with the goal of enjoying it,” she told Leichtathletik.de. “I set a life-time best and achieved everything that I wanted to.”
Wyludda was one of athletics high achievers, winning two European gold medals and two world championship silvers to add to her Olympic title. Her best throw came in Neubrandenburg in 1989 when she hurled the discus out to a distance of 74.56m.
Like many throws athletes, Wyludda suffered from numerous injuries throughout her career – ‘Pain is not the enemy but my partner’, she once said - but there was one which persisted and impossible to find a resolution to.
An open wound below the knee in her right leg had never properly healed and eventually became infected. In December 2010, she entered hospital to finally have the lower leg amputated.
She now trains five days a week and says that “it is nice once again to have stiff muscles.” And when she is not training, she works as an anaesthetist at the same hospital she had her operation in near Halle. In the evenings and at weekends she treats patients in her physiotherapy clinic which she founded seven years ago.
Though unsuccessful in the discus this time round, the SV Halle athlete will have another chance at a medal on Saturday September 8 when she goes in the shot. Her best as an able bodied athlete came in 1988 when she recorded 20.23.
