A year ago in Braunschweig, the women’s javelin at the Super League of the European Athletics Team Championships saw a new mum land victory.
Twelve months on in Cheboksary this weekend, it could be a similar outcome, and with it, Christina Obergföll will hope normal service is resumed.
In the first four years of this competition, Germany’s Obergföll created quite a reputation as she won the javelin on consecutive occasions. Infact, after her last triumph in Gateshead in 2013, she was the only athlete to have triumphed in their event at every staging of this championships’ top division.
Later that summer she became world champion in Moscow before an even happier moment in her life with the birth last June of her first child, son Marlon.
In her absence, when ironically the competition took place in her own country, victory at the European Athletics Team Championships went to none other than world record-holder Barbora Spotakova, of the Czech Republic, who herself was returning to the sport after becoming a mum.
But even with Spotakova winning with a throw of 65.57m, it was not enough to prevent her nation from being relegated into the First League.
Germany went on to lift the Super League trophy and they will head to Russia knowing it will be difficult to defend the keep the trophy against the home country.
Russia have won the title on three occasions, Germany have triumphed twice and the battle between these two leading European athletics super-powers could be sensational - particularly with the strength of their teams.
And when Obergfoll takes to the javelin runway on Saturday, the event will be saying ‘hello’ to an old friend.
She will aim to pick up where she left off in Gateshead where she maintained her superb record with a throw of 62.64m, to go alongside her 68.59m from 2009, her 59.88m from 2010 and her 66.22m from 2011.
Now back in Russia after her glory in Moscow, she will be looking to carry on where she left off.
In Spotakova, she has the perfect proof that balancing the joys of being a mother with the desire for gold can work together spectacularly.
After her win in Braunschweig, Spotakova then went on to be crowned European champion in Zurich and celebrated by holding her son Janek on the track.
As Obergföll said to Bunte magazine: 'The current European champion is my role model. She won as a mother of a year-old child.'
Now it is the turn of the German, who has made a steady start to the season with a best throw of 63.07m from Eugene at the end of May which puts her fifth on the European Athletics rankings led by Slovakia’s Martina Ratej with 65.75m.
Obergföll is one of three women in Cheboksary to have broken 60m this year, with Russia’s Viktoriya Sudarushkina with 62.78m and Belarusian Tatsiana Khaladovich with 61.70m the other two. And while their distances came in the winter, Ukraine’s Hanna Hatsko-Fedusova reached 59.08m last week and will play a big part.
It should be a fascinating competition.