The airspace remains unaffected. Sisyphus Hans-Joachim Weidner taking a break in the mountains
Hans-Joachim Weidner in Hohenbocka, right on the Brandenburg-Saxon state border, is not to be envied. The 63-year-old boss of the Lausitzer Sportevents e. V. completed the “Spreewald Marathon”, which he had to sacrifice to the pandemic with a heavy heart in mid-April, as in the previous year – and thus for the second time in a row around 3.8 million euros in “added value” for the region.
It would have been the 19th edition of the largest sporting event in Brandenburg. There are normally 15,000 participants on almost 50 different routes – from the “mini cucumber run” for the youngest to the senior walk. “The marathon weekend is always a real family celebration,” enthused the maker. This event is so popular that it was meticulously prepared despite strict corona regulations. Thousands of “regular customers” from all over Germany had been looking forward to it and were optimistic about it. Now it is time to pay back all advance transfers in painstaking detail.
Lights on, lights off
Hans-Joachim Weidner is very familiar with Sisyphus work. Sisyphus could be his middle name. Long before the pandemic, he made the acquaintance of all sorts of offices, rules and bureaucratic nooses that change practically every step of the way. At the premiere of the “Spreewald Marathon” in 2003, 20 pages of paper were enough for official applications. The approval process now easily requires 1,000 pages. Three districts are also involved, each of which engages eight offices “including appendices”. “We are dealing with a total of 45 authorities,” reports Hans-Joachim Weidner jW and presents correspondence to the extent that he would have wanted to organize Olympic Games around the Lausitzring.
The bureaucracy, he says, “got worse and worse, especially after the 2010 Love Parade in Duisburg.” At that time, 21 people died and over 650 visitors were injured. A few years earlier, the federal government began to tame him with the “Ordinance against the excessive use of district, state and federal roads by sporting events”. At the events organized by Weidner for runners, walkers, hikers or skaters, routes that only crossed small asphalt roads or areas became impossible.
“Suddenly we couldn’t even run across our village square here.” In the best case scenario, it was possible to relocate the routes at great expense, in the worst case it ended with the elimination of many popular sporting events. The ordinance not only ensured the end of several popular sporting events in Lusatia. The bicycle tours in Heidenau, Saxony, Freiberg and Hainichen have also fallen victim to this regulation.
Sometimes Hans-Joachim Weidner asks himself where he gets his vigor from with so many disabilities and thinks back to less complicated times when he earned his first merits as an organizer on a voluntary basis under the umbrella of the company sports community (BSG) »Aktivist«. He launched his first »Start Sunrise – Finish Sunset« in 1976 with 78 runners and a course around Schipkau. “We put it in December on the shortest day of the year, we didn’t want to make it that difficult.” A year later, the “Lausitz Marathon” celebrated its premiere with 42.195 kilometers through the Senftenberg district. A motorway driveway was even closed for a short time so that the runners could pass. The authorities and authorities literally let marathon fans run wild, remembers the man, who now organizes sporting events in his main job and has created a second mainstay for himself with professional timing technology.
“What happened then would be unthinkable now. And above all: every additional sign, every new edition costs money «, says the active Lusatian. He has a few more delicacies from his everyday life to offer. For example his night run in Lübben, for the premiere of which in 2013 the public order office ordered: Because of the risk of injury to the participants, it is essential that all bridges over the canals and branches of the Spree that are to be used are adequately lit! Meanwhile, the lower nature conservation authority demanded: Lights out! After a long argument, a compromise followed. Only lighting in a precisely defined wavelength may be used.
Regeln of the courses
What he reports about the half marathon through the Spreewald Biosphere Reserve, which was allowed to take place 17 times without incidents before the official white horse began to neigh, is also weird. Please only invite the runners over this 21-kilometer distance, according to the updated official request. Hikers are now no longer permitted because, in the opinion of the authorities, they are traveling too slowly – and that is precisely why they disturb the brood of birds. Head of organization Weidner can’t laugh at that, but he can now at last year’s episode at the summer event “Lausitzer Seenland 100”. The start was uncertain until the last minute because the regional air rescue team still lacked the green light. Without further ado, Weidner assured that the airspace was guaranteed to remain untouched at this event. This evidence was convincing.
With the pandemic, the hygiene requirements in particular have become even more difficult, especially since every head of office can practically determine the rules himself. There could soon be no more refreshment stands, as they were always a part of longer distances and offered 40 different cakes at Weidner’s events. “The authorities would like it best when people pack everything in rucksacks and run with them,” explains Hans-Joachim Weidner, but finds a welcome exception to the rules of the bureaucratic obstacle course. His praise goes to the state forest as a supporter of the “Snowdrop Run”, in which over three thousand hikers, runners and walkers have taken part every March since 2008. Mostly through the forest, along the Königsbrücker Heide, it goes parallel to the Autobahn 13 from the »Dreieck Spreewald« to the gates of Dresden. “You don’t have to ask dozens of landowners beforehand. With the state forest there is only one contact person there, and the authority even clears the way of its own accord in the event of storm damage, «says Weidner.
