Katharina Haecker

Fast Facts

Sport: Judo
Event: -63kg
Olympic History: Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020
Year Born: 1992
State Born: Hamburg, Germany

About Katharina

Katharina Haecker was born in Germany to an Australian father and a German mother. She was introduced to the sport of Judo in Hamburg when she was six. Throughout her youth she won a number of junior titles.

After she finished high school she made the decision to stop competitive judo and take a year off to discover Australia. During her time visiting Australia she found the place felt like home instantly. Once Haecker was back in Germany she returned to Judo and started training with current coach, and now partner, Alexander Luedeke.

Her return to Germany also saw her move up a weight division from -57kg to-63kg and, despite it taking a little while to adjust, she soon began to record strong results. She began fighting for Australia and got selected to represent the green and gold at the 2014 Oceania Championships which she went on to win. After going down in the fight for bronze at the 2014 Commonwealth Games, she defended her Oceania title in 2015 and again in 2016 to qualify for her debut Olympic Games

At the Olympics, Haecker lined up against Laura Salles Lopez of Andorra in her opening fight and got the victory after just over a minute. She couldn’t match the result in her second contest going down to Japan’s Miku Tashiro by ippon.

Hawker has mentioned that she was not born naturally talented at judo, but it is her love for the sport that has gotten her so far. All her success has been due to sheer hard work, that has rewarded her with a well versed technical skill-set. In regard to the mental pressures faced with Judo it actually took Haecker a long time to find self belief, but now she considers her mindset one of her strongest assets.

Over recent years Haecker took silver at the 2018 Agadir Grand Prix and a bronze medal at the 2018 Grand Prix in Tunis in 2018. The next year she went on to clinched silver at the 2019 Grand Prix in Marrakech.

In 2020 she won the Tel Aviv Grand Prix and she recently claimed silver at the 2021 Asia-Oceania Senior Championships. 

Haecker returned to Olympic competition in Tokyo, five years after she made her Olympic debut in Rio. In the Women’s -63 kg division, Haecker won her initial bout against Israel’s Gili Sharir but lost a close round of 16 match against Dutch competitor Juul Franssen.