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Following a 4th place finish in the heptathlon at the 1999 World
Championships, and a 5th place result at the following year's Olympic
Games at the age of 35, it seemed that Sabine Braun's days of winning
medals at major championships had passed her by. Indeed, after
finishing second in the long jump at the German national indoor
championships in February, Braun had a very quiet year in 2001, not
contesting an heptathlon nor competing at that year's World
Championships in Edmonton. Sabine returned to heptathlon competition in
2002, with two good performances within a fortnight. Firstly, she
finished second behind Shelia Burrell (USA) at Gotzis on 1-2 June with a
6299 points total, followed by a 6254 points victory at Ratingen on
15-16 June.
On 9-10 August, Braun competed in her 66th and last
heptathlon at the European Championships in Munich, where both she and
the other competitors were overwhelmed by the 19-year old Swedish
sensation Carolina Kluft, who was born in the same year (1983) that
Braun won the heptathlon silver medal at the European Junior
Championships. Despite Kluft's dominance, Braun had a good first day,
which included a 1.80m high jump (see photo above), and was lying
in third place after four events, 105 points behind 2001 World
Championships silver medallist Natalya Sazanovich (Belarus). The
following day, Braun reduced Sazanovich's advantage to 51 points after
the long jump, and she then unleashed a 51.23m javelin throw, over four
metres beyond Sazanovich's best effort, which put Sabine into second
place and carrying a 29-point buffer into the final event. Braun easily
held off the challenge from Kazanovich in the 800m, finishing with a
total of 6434 points to win the silver medal. A fortnight later the
37-year old Braun formally announced the end of her long and illustrious
career. (Ron Casey) .
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