Lukas Weißhaidinger

Lukas Weißhaidinger

Personal information
Born	(1992-02-20) 20 February 1992 Schärding, Austria
Height	197 cm (6 ft 6 in)
Weight	130 kg (290 lb)
Sport
Country	Austria
Event(s)	Discus throw Shot put
Club	ÖTB-OÖ Leichtathletik
Coached by	Josef "Sepp" Schopf
Achievements and titles
Personal best(s)	DT: 67.24 (2015) SP: 19.32i (2013)
Medal record European Junior Championships 2011 Tallinn Discus throw European Youth Olympic Festival 2009 Tampere Discus throw 2009 Tampere Shot put
Updated on 11 August 2015.

Lukas Weißhaidinger (born 20 February 1992) is an Austrian discus thrower and shot putter. He was European junior discus champion in 2011 and holds the Austrian record in men's discus throw.

Career

In his childhood Weißhaidinger competed in gymnastics, but dropped that sport after growing too tall and concentrated on athletics. Weißhaidinger won gold in both the shot (20.35 m/5 kg) and the discus (60.94 m/1.5 kg) at the 2009 European Youth Olympic Festival in Tampere. He also competed in both events at the 2009 World Youth Championships and the 2010 World Junior Championships; in the shot he placed fourth in 2009 and sixth in 2010, while in the discus he went out in qualifying both times.

In 2011 Weißhaidinger set Austrian junior records in both the shot and the discus and won gold in the discus at the European Junior Championships in Tallinn (63.83 m/1.75 kg); in the shot he placed fifth. He was the first Austrian since Günther Weidlinger and Linda Horvath in 1997 to win a European junior title.

Weißhaidinger broke the Austrian under-23 shot put record in 2012, throwing 19.22 m. He was a finalist in both the shot and the discus at the 2013 European U23 Championships, but did not place in the top six in either event. Weißhaidinger first broke 60 metres with the men's 2 kg discus in 2014, throwing 60.02 m in April and 60.68 m in May; he was the first Austrian under-23 thrower to exceed 60 metres, breaking Gerhard Mayer's national under-23 record from 2001.

Weißhaidinger competed in the shot at the 2015 European Indoor Championships, but was eliminated in the qualification. Outdoors, he improved his personal best in the discus several times, reaching 63.13 m in July; on 1 August, helped by perfect wind conditions and a new technique, he threw 67.24 m in Schwechat, improving his personal best by more than four metres and breaking Gerhard Mayer's Austrian record of 67.20 m. The mark also exceeded the qualifying standards for the 2015 World Championships and the 2016 Summer Olympics; at the time, it ranked him fourth on the 2015 world list.

External links

• Lukas Weisshaidinger profile at IAAF