And then there was that feeling again, which enveloped him more and more in the morning like a slightly too warm coat and let him know: Everything is good. It was this tingling sensation that hurdle sprinter Matthias Bühler did not demonize because it signalized that he was ready for a new challenge. In a way, the excitement even gave him a certain calm, because he was always excited, as Buhler said after the race in the Black Forest idiom, “because the thrill is just so high with me”. Then there was another moment after his appearance in Regensburg, Buhler was not excited but just speechless: 13.60 seconds, he did not expect that, he said, not even under these conditions: sun, warmth, 1.3 Tail wind meters per second.
You really don’t experience Buhler speechless too often.
Many of the few admitted viewers in Regensburg were a little surprised when they saw this tall man in a blue jersey climb into the starting block in front of the 110 meter hurdles. Yes, that was actually Matthias Bühler, 33, TV Haslach. Hadn’t he shut down his career? The retirement was still quite present, Bühler had signed off in 2018 with a clattering post on social media, the title: “End of career – or why I am no longer being fooled”.
Well, his comeback was no joke: he had already started the season at the beginning of July with 13.95 seconds, his 13.60 is currently even the best time in Germany, and because Gregor Traber is probably the best German hurdler in the national title fights in one week is injured, Bühler is now opening up completely new perspectives. When you talked to him in Regensburg, you at least felt reminded of the realization that an end can sometimes be the beginning of something new.
Up until three years ago, Bühler was one of the most deserving athletes, seven German championships, Olympic drivers in 2012 and 2016, European Championship ninth in 2014 and World Championship eleventh in 2015, best time 13.34 seconds. He just never really stood in the bright light of the public, because World Cup elevenths rarely spark cheers outside the scene, even if they are almost as high in the international sprint as finalists in other competitions. Buehler’s popularity only changed at the 2017 World Cup when he had a calculated outburst of anger on ZDF after his semi-final out: It couldn’t work, he rumbled that many Olympic athletes could hardly pay their rent from the funding or, like him, in the children’s room have to live with the parents. Buhler was very well received, but some colleagues on site felt that he simply had to adapt. And anyway, according to the tenor, Bühler should perform first. At the time it sounded strange: Because he had failed a run, should he be silent now?
A year later, Bühler resigned, his body was worn down from 15 years of top-class sport: pelvis, back, feet, muscles, everything hurt. But there was still strength for a criticism of the maneuvers. The criticism from colleagues in London? There he got “directly vomiting”, wrote Bühler, with so much “arrogance”. The status quo? The federal and police sports promotion groups were a good idea, but he was robbed through the mud during courses and let himself be shouted at while international competition benefited from basic support and scholarships – that was “absolutely ridiculous”. Otherwise, you could hardly win sponsors anymore, the athletics had slipped far to the edge (which it was also responsible for through fraud affairs). And on Instagram for sponsors “jumping around like a monkey in front of a cell phone”, that couldn’t be it either.
When you talk to Buhler today, he has dimmed his (too?) Sharp tone somewhat, but not his concerns. In 2017 he tried to make a difference, “I was also interested in the next generation, but nothing has changed.” The corona crisis has exacerbated the savings constraints among associations and sponsors. He did not want to criticize the German Athletics Association. Politicians must simply provide “basic support for athletes who have achieved certain services”, around two years of basic security for all Olympic starters: “Because they represent their country and also show certain values,” says Bühler. And so the core question has returned to which top sport a democratic society wants to afford. One who is looking for more medalists, but who later tend to get sick and die later, as sports scientist Lutz Thieme recently emphasized in a study? Or someone who also promotes hurdle sprinters who would never win an Olympic medal without chemistry – but who stand for the diversity of a sports scene?
Buehler’s answer for now is: “I still love my sport.” And because the physical complaints suddenly disappeared last fall (“I feel like I’m 25”), he put his job as IT system clerk behind and ordered training plans from his long-time trainer Andreas Brehm, which he then implemented in Stuttgart. The funding is again the old one, “from mom and dad”, there is no other way. Olympia 2021 in Tokyo was another “big, big dream”, but he wouldn’t tackle it if he didn’t think it was possible. The old tingling is back after all.
.
