| Petra Zahrl | |
| Fullname: | Petra Zahrl |
| Strokes: | Freestyle, butterfly |
| Club: | SC Donau |
| Birth Date: | 4 April 1981 |
| Birth Place: | Vienna, Austria |
| Height: | 1.690NaN0 |
| Weight: | 600NaN0 |
| Show-Medals: | yes |
Petra Zahrl (born April 4, 1981) is an Austrian former swimmer, who specialized in freestyle and butterfly events.[1] Since 2009, she currently holds four Austrian records in the freestyle and medley relays. She also claimed a bronze medal in the 200 m butterfly (2:09.29) at the 2000 European Short Course Swimming Championships in Valencia, Spain.
Zahrl made her first Austrian team at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, where she competed in the women's 200 m butterfly. Swimming in heat two, she picked up a third spot and twenty-third overall by seven tenths of a second (0.70) behind Macedonia's Mirjana Boševska in 2:13.29.[2]
At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Zahrl qualified again for the 200 m butterfly by eclipsing a FINA A-cut of 2:10.50 from the European Championships in Madrid.[3] [4] She challenged seven other swimmers on the same heat as Sydney, including top medal favorite Éva Risztov of Hungary. She edged out 15-year-old Kwon You-Ri of South Korea to take a seventh spot by 0.38 of a second in 2:13.92. Zahrl failed to advance into the semifinals, as she managed to repeat a twenty-third-place finish from Sydney in the preliminaries.[5] [6]