Lisa Ecker
Austrian artistic gymnast (born 1992)
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Lisa Ecker (born 19 September 1992)[2] is an Austrian female artistic gymnast who competed at the senior international elite level. She competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, placing 43rd; it was only the second time that Austria was represented in artistic gymnastics at the Olympics, after a hiatus of 48 years.[3][4] In 2017, she retired from competition, having won seven World Challenge Cup medals and 14 national titles, and having reached one European Championship final.[4]
| Lisa Ecker | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Ecker in 2016 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Lisa Ecker | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 19 September 1992 Linz, Austria | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.57 m (5 ft 2 in)[1] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gymnastics career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Women's artistic gymnastics | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Country represented |  Austria (2015) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Club | ASKO Kleinmunchen | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head coach(es) | Johanna Gratt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Early life and training
Ecker first did gymnastics in kindergarten, and started training competitively in 2000 at the age of eight.[5][6] She was coached by Johanna Gratt, who was also her physiotherapist, for 16 years.[4][6] As of 2016, she was training at the TGW gymnastics performance center at the Linz winter port.[5] Her home club was ASKÖ Kleinmünchen.[5]
Gymnastics career
Ecker's first Austrian all-around title came in 2012, when she won in the absence of Barbara Gasser.[7] Her victory came after a year out with injury, due to a torn ACL,[8][7] which she sustained shortly after the 2011 World Championships in Tokyo.[8] She also took home her first international medal, winning silver at the 2012 FIG World Challenge Cup in Ostrava.[9] That year, she was named Austria's Gymnast of the Year.[10]
In 2013, Ecker reached the finals at the European Championship in Moscow, placing 19th in the individual all-around, the best result for an Austrian woman in 50 years.[8] She subsequently won a bronze medal on the balance beam at the 2013 FIG World Challenge Cup in Ljubljana.[8]
Ecker won her third national title in all-around artistic gymnastics in November 2014, despite having undergone knee surgery the year before.[11] In 2015, Ecker participated at the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow.[12]
In February 2016, Ecker won the bronze medal in vault at the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Baku, Azerbaijan, with a score of 13.775 points.[13] In April, she qualified for 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, with an error-free performance on all four devices, ranking 12th with 53.132 all-around points.[14][15] She qualified despite an injury to her fourth metatarsal which she had sustained in March.[16] It was only the second time that Austria had qualified for the Olympics in artistic gymnastics after its absence for nearly half a century.[3]
In July 2016, Ecker competed in the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Challenge Cup in Mersin, Turkey, and won four medals, one on each device.[17] At the 2016 Summer Olympics the following month, she finished 43rd in the preliminary phase of the women's artistic gymnastics with an all-around score of 52.966.[1][18] She failed to qualify for the final or set a personal record, following a fall from the uneven bars.[19]
Although Ecker had originally considered retiring immediately after the Olympics, she took a break instead.[10] She retired in 2017, aged 24, due in part to an ankle injury and the unavailability of a suitable coach to replace Gratt.[4]
Personal life
Ecker is from Linz, Austria.[15] Before retiring from competition, she studied as a masseuse and applied for a Fachhochschule course in physiotherapy.[5] In 2020, she married her long-time partner Lukas Kranzlmüller,[20] an international gymnast who had won the Austrian national men's title in 2014.[21] Kranzlmüller is pursuing a career as a police officer, while Ecker works as a physiotherapist.[20]