European Champion Kim Polling five months out

Dutch European Champion Kim Polling won’t compete at the World Championships. The four-time European champion is expected to recover at least five months and will be missing the worlds at the end of September.

Polling suffered from the hernia since the European Championships in April. Initially it was treated conservatively, but it didn’t lead to positive results and an operation is necessary to be able to fully recover.

Polling: "I'm obviously not happy to miss out on the World Championships. But as a top athlete you know that disappointments and injuries are part of it. In the forthcoming period I will be focusing on my rehabilitation and I’m lucky to have a strong medical team supporting me in the recovery. It is also reassuring that after the end of my rehabilitation, there will still be enough time to start in the Olympic qualifying track and to qualify for the Olympic Games. "

In her weight category Sanne van Dijke is the highest seeded Dutch player U70kg at the 5^th position and she will for sure be competing in Baku from 20 to 27 September. The points difference between Polling van Van Dijke isn’t too big with 300 points. Despite her world leading position for years, Polling only took bronze medal at the 2013 World Championships and wasn’t successful in 2014 (5) and 2015 (7) and lost in the 1/8 final in 2017. In 2018 she came back after an elbow injury with gold at the Grand Slam in Abu Dhabi, Grand Prix in The Hague where she defeated van Dijke and bronze at the Grand Slam in Paris.