Kira Grünberg

During a training on the morning of the 30th of July, Kira Grünberg was doing a practice jump.

The bar was only set to 4m which is quite below her personal best of 4.35m and she only took eight steps run-up, shorter than she would do it in a competition.

This set-up was typical for practice jumps for her but this time something went wrong.

Kira lacked the momentum to land on the mattress and instead fell back on the ground.

Her neck hit the metal edge of the box in the ground where pole vaulters put their poles in.

Her parents were present when the accident happened, the father was coaching, the mother filmed her jump for video analysis like they usually did in trainings.

After the accident, Kira Grünberg was hospitalised in the Universitätsklinikum Innsbruck.

After the doctors diagnosed a broken fifth cervical vertebra and a resulting paraplegia, Kira was operated with the goal of stabilising the spinal column and avoiding further damages but the paraplegia could not be avoided anymore.

Three months after the accident, she was transferred to a rehabilitation clinic in the Austrian city Bad Häring where she stayed for seven months.

The public demonstrated great sympathy for the young athlete's fate.

Austrian and international sportspeople, celebrities and citizens participated in benefit events for Kira Grünberg and donation campaigns were started.

Kira Grünberg (born 13 August 1993 in Innsbruck) is an Austrian politician and former athlete who specialised in the pole vault.

During her career, Grünberg represented her country at many international competitions.

In 2010, Kira Grünberg finished fifth at the Olympic Youth Games and fifth at the world championship for under-twenty-years-old.

At the European Championship in Zürich she cleared a height of 4.45m which meant breaking the Austrian record and reaching the final of 13 participants.

One year later, she finished forth at the European Championship for the age group of U23.

Her best outings were the fourth place at the 2012 World Junior Championships and 2015 European U23 Championships.

In 2012, Kira Grünberg became part of the sports unit of the Austrian army in Innsbruck.

Being a sports soldier allowed her to focus on her sports career while receiving government funding.

Besides her sports career, Kira Grünberg started studying pharmacy in autumn 2013.

Kira Grünberg participated in various international competitions and set several Austrian national records in pole vaulting.

She holds the Austrian records for U16 (3.72m), U18 (4.01m), U20 (4.15m) and U23 (4.45m).

In addition, she reached the final at the 2014 European Championships where she, however, did not clear any height.

Her outdoor and indoor personal best is 4.45 metres set in 2014 and 2015 respectively.

These are current national records.

On 30 July 2015, Grünberg seriously injured her spine, during a training session in her native Innsbruck.

During a routine jump, she landed on her head and neck in the box in front of the mat, fracturing her fifth cervical vertebrae.

The injury left her a tetraplegic.

In March 2015, she set a new Austrian indoor record with 4.45m at the European Indoor Championship in Prague.

Kira Grünberg was severely injured during training on 30 July 2015.

The injury left her paraplegic from the chest down.

Furthermore, she became part of the “Hope Kader für Rio 2016” which is a program funded by the Austrian ministry of sports to support athletes with the prospect of qualifying for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

At the 2017 National Council elections, she was elected at tenth place on the ÖVP's federal list and took office on 9 November 2017.

Kira Grünberg's dream of becoming a professional pole vaulter began when she was seven years old and watched the Olympic Games in Sydney on TV.

The pole vaulting competition especially fascinated her.

However, at a young age she first started with gymnastics and general athletics and specialized in pole vaulting a few years later.

Since she couldn't find a coach for pole vaulting in her hometown Innsbruck, her father Frithjof Grünberg who used to do pole vaulting as a hobby started to coach her.

Her father is described as eager to deepen his technical know-how and seeking contact with international experts in pole vaulting and athletics for new training inputs.

Later, Rainer Schopf worked with her on her sprinting skills.

A few times a year, Kira trained with Herbert Czingon, a renowned pole vault coach who coached both the German and the Swiss national team.