Ivona Dadic is an Austrian athlete and multiple state champion in the heptathlon. She is the World Indoor Championships silver medallist and European Championships bronze medallist.
Ivona Dadic was born on December 29, 1993, in Wels, Austria. She started in athletics as a kid and showed fantastic results. Ivona Dadic competed at the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympics, finishing sixth in the long jump. In the heptathlon, she reached the tenth place at the 2011 Junior European Championships in Tallinn.
In 2012, the then 18-year-old improved the Austrian national record set by Sigrid Kirchmann from 1985 from 5,944 to 5,959 points at the all-around meeting in Gotzis. Dadic thus qualified for the London 2012 Olympics and was the first Austrian in the heptathlon to take part in the Olympic Games. With 5,935 points she finished 25th.
At the 2015 European U23 Championships in Tallinn, Estonia, Ivona Dadic won the bronze medal and improved her own national record to 6,033 points. She was also part of the Austrian 4x400m relay, which was disqualified in the final. Despite this, Ivona Dadic did not compete at the World Championships in Beijing. After the World Championships, she improved her national record again to 6,151 points at the Decastar all-around meeting in Talence, France. Since 2015, she has started for the Sportunion Saint Poelten. She was voted Sportswoman of the Year in Lower Austria for 2016, as well as Track and Field Athlete of the Year in Austria.
At the 2016 European Championships in Amsterdam, Ivona Dadic won the bronze medal in the heptathlon with a new Austrian record of 6,408 points. This performance also qualified her for the Rio 2016 Olympics, where she finished 21st.
At the 2017 European Indoor Championships in Belgrade on March 3, she improved her own record in the pentathlon to 4,767 points, winning the silver medal behind Belgian Olympic champion Nafissatou Thiam. At the World Championships in London, Ivona Dadic took 6th place in the heptathlon with a new national record of 6,417 points.
In February 2018, Ivona Dadic achieved a world record for the year in the pentathlon at the state championships in the all-around event in Vienna’s Ferry-Dusika-Hallenstadion with 4,692 points. At the 2018 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham, she won the silver medal in the pentathlon with a season-best of 4,700 points. Ivona Dadic decided not to start at the Gotzis all-around meeting in May 2018 in order to have three more important weeks to prepare for the European Championships in Berlin. As second at the all-around meeting in Ratingen, Ivona Dadic missed a new Austrian record in the heptathlon with 6,413 points by only 4 points in June 2018. At the European Championships in Berlin in August, the 24-year-old athlete improved her own Austrian record to 6,552 points and thus took fourth place in the heptathlon. After evaluating the IAAF world annual best list 2018, the three Austrian heptathletes Ivona Dadic (6,552 points), Verena Mayr (6,337 points) and Sarah Lagger (6,225 points) took first place in the worldwide nations ranking for the first time.
In 2019, she took 4th place in the pentathlon at the European Indoor Championships in Glasgow. With 4,702 points she was only 21 points short of bronze and 29 points of silver. In June she came second behind Verena Mayr at the Ratingen all-around meeting with 6,461 points.
In the outdoor season, which started late due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ivona Dadic became state champion in the all-around on August 30, 2020, with a world annual record of 6,419 points, which lasted until the end of the year.
In 2021, she was fourth again at the European Indoor Championships, with a season-best of 4,587 points. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, she finished 8th with 6,403 points.
In 2022, she competed at the European Athletics Championships in Munchen but did not win a medal. However, she succeeded to win the gold in the heptathlon at the Decastar event in France.
Nationally, Ivona Dadic became the Austrian champion in the heptathlon in 2012, the shot put in 2017, and the long jump in 2018. Indoors, she secured the championship titles in the pentathlon in 2011 and 2012 as well as in 2017 and 2018. She also won the long jump and the 4x200m relay in 2017 and the long jump and high jump in 2019. As post at the Femi Women Sports News she is one of the most talented athletes nowadays.
Ivona Dadic photos
