Tuesday, August 31, 2021
Golden Wednesday for the DBS team?
Para-Star Rehm attacks the Olympic champion
So far, the rain of medals for the German athletes at the Paralympics in Tokyo has not materialized – but that could change on Wednesday. There are high hopes, especially in the disciplines of cycling, long jump and swimming.
Markus Rehm could lay down a moment for the para-eternity and the swimmers hope for an end to the nine-year gold curse. After a slow start and a decent start into the second half, the eighth day of the Paralympics competition in Tokyo could be a super Wednesday for Germany. Also because the cyclists want to keep collecting medals on the Formula 1 track at the foot of Mount Fuji.
“We are now in the race and are about to strike properly,” says Friedhelm Julius Beucher, President of the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS). The number of five gold medals by Tuesday afternoon could be doubled within a few hours. At the same time, it will be decided on Wednesday how the atmosphere in the team will be in the final sprint. And whether the DBS can still achieve its goal – Top 10 in the medal table.
“We knew that we wouldn’t tear the world apart in the first few days,” says Karl Quade, Germany’s Chef de Mission in Japan for the 13th time: “We left a little behind, but not much. But we mustn’t overestimate that . Our highlight days are coming now. “
Long jumper Rehm wants to crack the Olympic champion’s 8.41 meter mark
And after the schedule initially offered few disciplines with German gold candidates, things really come together on Wednesday. Long jump world record holder Rehm is, for example, “one of the biggest stars” of the scene in the eyes of IPC President Andrew Parsons. No bookmaker will accept bets on his win on Wednesday from 1:20 p.m. German time.
Rehm distanced his competition by almost two meters. The “Bladejumper” flies in other spheres and therefore also has other goals: He wants to jump further than Olympic champion Miltiadis Tentoglou, who reached gold in Tokyo with 8.41 meters. “That would be a nice statement,” says the Leverkusen resident. He “definitely wants to attack again” his world record of 8.62 meters, which he set in June. And he wants to “leave something behind in Japan”, to change the image of the disabled there.
Taliso Engel (Leverkusen) and Elena Krawzow (Berlin) formulate their goals even more cautiously. They want to be in the top three on Wednesday evening local time in their special discipline over 100 meters chest. Means: get a medal. But because both will jump into the pool as European champions and second in the world rankings, they have even higher hopes. Since Daniela Schulte’s victory in the 400 meter freestyle on September 7, 2012 in London, there has not been a single German swimming gold on 18 days of competition at the Paralympics. In 1996 in Atlanta, the DBS had fished 19 gold medals out of the basin.
The cyclist will start the medal hunt at noon. Five years ago you won eight of 18 German gold medals in Rio. And at the start on Tuesday there were already eight medals in the time trial.
.