Anyone who watched this analogue television in the 1980s could hardly avoid a funny, wooden commercial: a chic businesswoman flies around the world in a private jet and always shows off her phenomenally right hairstyle on departure and arrival. From the off: “Hamburg, 8.30 a.m., rain again. Perfect hold for the hair – Drei Wetter Taft. Onward flight to Rome, the sun is burning. Perfect protection – Drei Wetter Taft.”
Transferred to the five German beach volleyball duos, who are currently taking part in the World Cup in Rome, where the sun is burning again, one can say after black days: Except for the duo Svenja Müller and Cinja Tillmann, who are in the quarterfinals, they are coming pretty disheveled back to their federal base in Hamburg. Especially the men who were only represented in Clemens Wickler and Nils Ehlers anyway. There are individual and above all structural reasons for this.
There was a golden age in German men’s beach volleyball, based on the bronze medal of Jörg Ahmann and Axel Hager from Sydney 2000, especially the Olympic victory celebrated by Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann in London in 2012. The sport, which is often ridiculed, had the highest ratings at the games at the time, Brink and Reckermann got the Bambi, Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst achieved the same success four years later in Rio. They, too, were carried on hands through the media landscape and award ceremonies. And the German Volleyball Association (DVV)? Trapped in his encrusted hall structures, he didn’t even know what beach volleyball was before Ahmann/Hager’s bronze, after that he showed a tender interest in this terrain that was so foreign to him – and missed structural investments, especially after 2012 for men and 2016 for women .
The best German men are currently world number 27.
The centralized base in Hamburg that was created after Rio was characterized more by the fact that many athletes Not wanted to go there because they refused to be forced to move by the DVV in the manner of a landlord. Concepts for the younger generation were almost entirely absent. Promising TV cooperations, such as with Sky, the German series (which was once the greatest in Europe) and its highlight, the DM in Timmendorfer Strand, came to an end. In the meantime, this German series, which is supposed to be the springboard for young German talents, is a shadow of itself. In April it was almost over because the association’s marketing subsidiary went bankrupt. All of this does not cast a good light on the DVV top team around the former indoor national player René Hecht, who is also facing more and more wind internally.
The fact that Julius Thole, Wickler’s partner and one of the few blockers that have been developed via the association system in recent years, also resigned last autumn, fits into the picture. Even if Thole gave reasons for studying – at the age of 24 and not far from Paris 2024, if the general conditions are right, nobody should stop who was second in the 2019 World Cup with Wickler and was also a smart advertising face for the DVV.
Ehlers is now the only strong blocker with World Cup level that the DVV currently has – but it doesn’t yet harmonize with Wickler. As well as? Forming a team takes years. The duo is currently 27th in the world rankings, with the talents Lukas Pfretzschner/Robin Sowa right behind them. And otherwise? Yawning emptiness. Despite some World Cup disappointments, the prospects for women are more promising, and Laura Ludwig, the over-mother in the sand, who had her second child a month ago, could also come back. The newly formed duo Tillmann/Müller is third in the world rankings. Incidentally, Tillmann has sued the association for years because she felt she was being treated unfairly when she was nominated for international tournaments – in the end without success.
