“You are very bad”
DLV star dedicates EM lead to colleague with cancer
3/4/2023 3:09 p.m
Sam Parsons has just entered the 3,000 meter final at the European Indoor Championships when he thinks of a seriously ill training colleague. After the preliminary round in Istanbul, the German track and field athlete talks about his emotional low and dedicates the performance to a person who is currently fighting cancer.
On paper, Sam Parsons is a gold medal contender. After all, the German runner is number one on the entry list over 3000 meters at the European Indoor Championships, because of which athletics is looking forward to Istanbul this weekend. However, after the preliminary heats in the Turkish metropolis, the 28-year-old turned his attention away from the sporting events after having confidently qualified for the final on Sunday evening. He was recently “emotionally very down” because “a young woman from my training group had cancer”: “She’s doing very badly.”
Parsons, third in his preliminary heat, made it into the final without any major problems in 7:57.18 minutes. A performance that he dedicated to his training colleague: “Today was a run for her.” The SCC Berlin athlete did not name a name, but “she is a person who makes a room shine when she enters it.” Although Parsons starts for the Berlin club, he prefers to train in an international training group of his supplier Adidas in the USA. The German-American also reported on her fight against the serious illness: “Yesterday she had her second chemotherapy.” He summarized the stroke of fate as “so sad”: “You never know how much time you have in this world.”
In view of these personal insights, the sporting starting position faded somewhat into the background: Parsons traveled to Istanbul with his best time (7:39.94) with the best previous performance – but Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the favorite. The Norwegian “runs just perfectly”, Parsons praised his competitor, who had won his tenth European title the day before over 1500 meters. At the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, the star of the then 17-year-old rose with victories over 1500 and 5000 meters. Ingebrigtsen is now 22, has improved the European records over those two distances and seems to dominate at will. Ingebrigsten also won twice at the European Championships in Munich in August, Parsons finished sixth over 5000 meters.
But he, in turn, is in good spirits to be able to challenge the alleged defector and also the Spaniard Adel Mechaal, until recently the European indoor record holder over 3000 meters, in the final (Sunday, 6 p.m.). “Hanna Klein and Konstanze Klosterhalfen gave me a lot of power with their performance yesterday,” said the 28-year-old – the duo of the German Athletics Association had celebrated a double victory in the women’s final over the 15 indoor rounds with an impressive performance. Unlike at the German Championships in February, Klein had the better end this time, with the 29-year-old also setting a personal best of 8:35.87 minutes.