Presseübersicht
(acm/mps) Without any doubts, this was one of the most emotional moments of her career, when Nadia Zülow (Neuss) jumped off the horse for the last time in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle on Sunday morning. Together with Jan Bayer (Oldenburg), she was able to win the KARSTADT GERMAN VAULTING MASTER, the Pas-de-Deux vaulting at the STUTTGART GERMAN MASTERS, the international riding and show jumping competition, for the second time after 2001, and finalized her career with this title. With four world and three European titles, the 26-year old is the most successful vaulter ever. Numerous fans had to fight back their tears, when Stefan Krawczyk, the announcer, reminded of the different phases in Nadia Zülow’s career. Gotthilf Riexinger, the competition director, handed over one of highest awards in the Equestrian sports to the vaulting queen – the FN-Ehrenzeichen in Gold. Thus, the German Equestrian Federation honored her great career and her merits for the vaulting sports.
„We love to entertain you“ was the motto with which Zülow and Bayer as well as Annika Speck, the lounger, and Rubin’s Universe, the 11-year old gelding, entertained the audience perfectly and which gained 546,4 points from the judges. After the technique program on Thursday and the individual freestyle on Friday, Zülow/Bayer had a total score of 1609. Nicola Ströh (Wohldorf) and Kai Vorberg (Köln), last year’s winners, who vaulted on Robin presented by Oliver Petter, ended up on the second position with 1574,3 points. They relegated Ines Jückstock (Hamburg) and Tim-Randy Sia (Osnabrück) on Windsor, lunged by Yvonne Heitmann (1522,5) to the third place.
“We, i.e. three persons and
our horse, had a fantastic weekend here in Stuttgart“, Nadia Zülow
summarized her last performance in the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle. “It
just went brilliant for us“. Jan Bayer, her partner, was also more than
pleased: „It has been a special challenge for us, to get used to one another
in only 5 weeks of preparation time. But I think, we have been still very
successful.” Nadia Zülow did not want to make any comments about further
future plans. “I have just said good-bye and would like to catch some breath
first. I love this sport and I live this sport. Therefore, this is only
a good-bye from the competitions, but not from the vaulting sports.”