Wednesday, August 18, 2021
Julian Reus ends his career
The fastest man in Germany stops
In the German men’s sprint, there has been no getting around Julian Reus for years. Now the 33-year-old has officially announced the end of his career, which will end positively at the Olympics in Tokyo. And that made him the fastest German over 100 meters.
Julian Reus stops. For the German record holder over 60 and 100 meters, the Olympic Games were the perfect end to a remarkable career. “How can you end a career happier than with an Olympic final,” said the 33-year-old in an interview with Leichtathletik.de, the official website of the German Athletics Association. With the sixth place in the final over 4×100 meters, the exceptional athlete steps off the big stage of the Olympic core sport, on which he sprinted in 2007 as U20 European champion over 100 meters.
Reus was at the top of the German sprint for 15 years, and in 2016 he set his current records of 6.52 seconds over 60 meters and 10.01 seconds over 100 meters. “I’m just very satisfied and happy,” he says, now that it is certain that his career will come to an end, that that was it with competitive sport. With the qualification for Tokyo, Reus reached his last big goal, as an experienced starter led his significantly younger relay colleagues Joshua Hartmann, Deniz Almas and Lucas Ansah-Peprah in the Olympic finals to sixth place in 38.12 seconds. The German record has stood at 38.02 seconds since 2012, and of course Reus was also part of the quartet back then.
Reus celebrated his greatest international successes in the sprint relay, winning EM silver in 2012 and 2014 and EM bronze in 2016. In singles, he was the first German to reach the semi-finals at the 2015 World Championships since the World Cup premiere 32 years earlier. In the previous winter season he shone at the European Indoor Championships as a bronze medalist over 60 meters. At national level, he secured the title over 100 meters five times in a row from 2013 to 2017, and in total his vita in the active area alone includes 19-fold gold at German championships in individual and relay.
He got closer to the magical ten-second limit than any other German, and even undercut it once in 9.99 seconds in irregular conditions with too much tailwind. That doesn’t make him sad, he says: “I don’t have the feeling that I am missing anything.” Much more the third attempt after London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 for the first time successful entry into the Olympic finals with the relay is a result for the 33-year-old, with which he can “finish positively”.
How it will go on is still open. He did his bachelor’s degree in “International Management” alongside competitive sports. At Leichtathletik.de he speaks of “certain ideas and concepts”, but “it’s still too early to be specific”. In contrast, the Erfurt-based athlete remains loyal to athletics in a different role, as Reus is already a member of the Presidium of the Thuringian Athletics Association. And he’s not worried about the sprint either, none of his three relay colleagues in Tokyo were older than 24 years: “If the boys continue to train as well as before, they will go their own way.” Even if that could cost him one of his German records.
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