I didn't manage to win in the final versus Alena Kartakhova (1.WC'03 -59kg, 5.WC'03 -63kg) from Russia, but It was the first time I wrestled her and I'm very optimistic that I will be able to beat her in summer.

Brigitte Wagner from Hallbergmoos won also a silver medal (48kg). She lost in the pool and in the final versus the ukrainian world champion Irina Melnik.
Anita Schätzle (72kg), Steffi Stüber (59kg) and Max Schwindt (74kg) finished 4th.

These three girls are member of our training group. They come from different clubs to train with us. Nadine van Berkum (Köln-Ehrenfeld) at -34kg and Karolin Bettge (Aachen-Walheim) at -49kg won gold, Aline Focken (Krefeld) won a bronce medal at -40kg.

Just 5 days after the qualifier in Madrid, I was really tired and had some problems especially in my halffinal match, but I managed to win my 10th german championships (senior level).

After winning my pool matches versus wrestlers from Spain and Mongolia, I had to wrestle my friend Niki Hartmann from Austria in the quarter final.
I won this match with 3:2 points. It was much easier to win the halffinal versus Sabrina Esposito from Italy. My final 3:5 loss versus Lise Legrand wasn't really important at this moment.

It's very sad that such outstanding wrestlers which dominated women's wrestling in the last 10 years like Nikola Hartmann and the two norwegian Gudrun Hoie (knee injury in Madrid) and Lene Aanes (shoulder injury in Tunis) will not be able to participate at the first Olympic games in women's wrestling.

I won my first two matches versus girls of Hungary and Czech Republic by fall. I won won also my quarterfinal versus the 3times world and 4times european champion Lise Golliot-Legrand from France (my first win ever versus Lise), but lost my halffinal 30 minutes later versus Lili Meng (1.WC'01,2.WC'99) from China.
I made a big mistake in the clinch in my bronce medal match versus Natalia Ivanova (a former russian wrestler who wrestles for Tatschikistan now) and lost by points after being nearly pinned by a headlock.

Our Brigitte Wagner won gold in the 48kg-category and earned the second olympic spot for Germany.
Christine Nordhagen, the 6times world champion from Canada won gold in the 72kg-category.
Christina Oertli lost in her pool versus the surprising winner of the 55kg-category from Korea.

Some notices:

• The canadian Lindsay Belisle failed to make the weight in the 48kg-category
• The winner of the olympic test tournament in january in the 55kg-category from China had a positive drug test in Athens.
• The team from Nigeria had four wrestlers who surprised most of us with her technical skills and fighting spirit.
• Lene Aanes (NOR), one of the best wrestlers in the 63kg-category, had to give up her olympic dream because of a shoulder injury
• Caripa Mayelis from Venezuela won bronce in the 48kg-category. She is the second south-american wrestler that won an olympic spot after Maribel Fonseca from Puerto Rico (55kg).

48kg Sigrun Dobner
51kg Alexandra Demmel
55kg Sabrina Lotz/ Jessica Bechtel
59kg Stefanie Stüber
63kg Julia Weiss/ Maria Müller
67kg Annika Oertli
72kg Anita Schätzle/ Kristin Büttner
Coach: Karl-Heinz Helbing

Youngster Dennis Blum failed in the quarterfinal at -74kg. The german wrestling federation tries to get a wild card in this category for our wrestling legend Alexander Leipold.

I lost my first match against the wrestler from China 0:3 and won my second pool match versus Sara Eriksson from Sweden with 3:0 . Sara had won her match versus China with 3:0 points before. The Chinese came out of the pool and lost in quarterfinal versus Alena Kartasheva from Russia with 1:3.