Birgit Kober

Birgit Kober (10 July 1971) is a German Paralympic athlete. She competes in T34 throwing events, and from 2011-2013 she became the reigning champion at European, World and Paralympic level in both shot put and javelin in her class. At the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games in London, she broke the world record in both her events.

Early history

Kober was born in 1971 and grew up in Munich. She took to sport at a young age, and by 14 she was involved in athletics and the javelin throw while at school in Munich. At the age of 16 a reaction with medical treatment left her deaf, and a year later she suffered an epileptic seizure. While still a teenager she moved to the Ruhr region where she attended a school for the deaf. She continued her education, specializing in medicine but was forced to cut her studies in 2006 to help care for her sick mother. In 2007 Kober suffered from a status epilepticus and she was rushed to hospital, but after complications she was left with ataxia.

Athletics career

Kober returned to athletics in 2008, mainly as a form of enjoyment with no serious ambitions to take the sport further. She joined TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen where she was coached by Joachim Lipske. Kober was quickly identified as a potential talent in throwing events and by 2009 she was competing in national competitions. Classified as a T34 category para-athlete, Kober specialized in both the javelin and shot put. She qualified for the 2011 IPC Athletics World Championships in Christchurch, New Zealand, and took gold in both her events. In the shot put, where she competed in a mixed F32/33/34 grouping, she threw a distance of 9.30m, a new world record.

In 2012, in the build-up to the Summer Paralympics in London, she entered the European Championships in Stadskanaal in the Netherlands. She again dominated the field taking both gold medals and recording a world record in the shot put with a throw of 10.06m. At the Paralympics she recorded a distance of 27.03m in the javelin and three days later she threw 10.25m in the shot put. Both distances were new world records in the T34 classification and gave her gold in both events.

Kober defended her World titles when she travelled to Lyon for the 2013 World Championships. She took both the javelin throw (F33/34) and shot put titles, equaling her world record throw in the javelin.