Sunday, June 6th, 2021
Athletics DM without outliers
Mihambo is not yet jumping in Olympic form
The German championships in athletics are mainly characterized by cancellations. And those who compete are not in top form just a few weeks before the Olympic Games. While long jumper Mihambo is still positive, an Olympic champion is threatened with death.
Long jump queen Malaika Mihambo continues to jump behind her form, discus giant Christoph Harting weakens and new doubts about javelin ace Thomas Röhler: The German athletics stars could hardly pick up speed in the national championships for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Many prominent names weren’t even at the start in Braunschweig, so there was no anticipation for the Olympics. Mihambo should at least provide a bit of glamor at the end of the competitions – but with her 6.62 meters, the world champion did not succeed. “Unfortunately it wasn’t that far today,” said Mihambo. But “definitely” there is still enough time before the games to get into the right shape.
Mihambo won her fifth national title, but again couldn’t cope with her run-up in difficult conditions and kept slowing down before the jump. As a result, the 27-year-old gave away many centimeters on the beam – and shook her head time and time again. The way to the longed-for Olympic gold will be anything but easy for Mihambo. Most recently, the third place in the World Cup, Ese Brume (Nigeria), improved to 7.17 meters; a total of five athletes have already cracked the 7-meter mark before Tokyo.
Javelin thrower Röhler even has to worry about his trip to Japan after his job on Saturday. The Thuringian has no distance to show since 2019, after pausing in 2020 and now his comeback has ended abruptly. Even so, the 2016 Rio gold medalist remains confident. “It’s a precautionary measure, we’ve decided, we’re not taking any chances. That doesn’t set me back,” he said. He felt a hardening in his chest.
Since around 2000 spectators were admitted to the Eintracht Stadium every day despite the corona pandemic, there was at least a bit of mood every now and then – that also distracted from many rather dreary performances after stars like Johannes Vetter, Konstanze Klosterhalfen, Gina Lückenkemper or David Storl had canceled.
Harting probably doesn’t defend the title
Five years after his spectacular triumph in Rio, Christoph Harting has to tremble more than ever for his ticket to Tokyo. The 31-year-old did not get past a very weak 57.29 meters and eighth place, five of his six attempts were invalid. For inexplicable reasons, he himself made a throw well over 60 meters invalid. Since his gold coup in 2016, Harting has suffered setback after setback. After the end of the competition he remained almost mute, as he had done for a long time: “No comment.”
Because of the pandemic, Robert Harting’s younger brother with his 66.01 meters from 2019 has already met the standard (66 meters) for Tokyo, the qualification period will run until the end of the month. But the competition in their own warehouse is fierce, in the internal ranking Harting is only fourth.
Overall, the DLV officials noted only four newly met Olympic standards. “For me it’s still early season. Usually you’re not quite in shape. I don’t think you can conclude here that there will be a season until the Olympic Games and that the ailing athletes will come back,” said Competitive sports director Idriss Gonschinska and referred to a difficult Olympic preparation in the pandemic.
In a complicated legal situation, prosthesis jumper Markus Rehm is still fighting for the DLV to nominate him for the Olympic Games. The three-time Paralympics winner from Leverkusen competed in the long jump outside of the classification and left the title winner Fabian Heinle (Stuttgart / 7.81) well behind with 8.29 meters.
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