Scottish football commentator Andy Gray rose to some notoriety a while back with a little treatise on measuring greatness. Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, the then best-known velvet feet in the football universe, well and good, blasphemed Gray. But if you were to free the two of them from the cozy and warm Primera Division, things would certainly look very different. “They would have had a hard time at the Britannia Stadium on a cold night,” said Gray, where Stoke FC’s side at the time proudly maintained their reputation for being particularly brave when it came to digging away at visiting teams.
And even if the long-distance runner Konstanze Klosterhalfen, the long jumper Malaika Mihambo and the high jumper Tobias Potye have about as much to do with British football as Scottish whiskey with chamomile tea: The Olympic Stadium in Munich, where the three German athletes on Thursday evening at the European Championship inauguration advertised, put itself in the best Stoke mood at times: windy, fresh, at times quite rainy.
Olympic champion, running record holder, high jump aesthete, well and good. But can they also do it on a drafty evening in Munich’s giant bowl?
You could. Silver for Malaika Mihambo, that was a minor outlier, even if the 28-year-old, at 7.03 meters, shouldn’t fall into deep depression after recovering from the corona infection. Tobias Potye won a silver medal with 2.27 meters, Konstanze Klosterhalfen after 14:50.47 minutes over 5000 meters even the fifth German gold medal at this European Athletics Championships, which came as a surprise – in very different ways.
High in the air: Malaika Mihambo jumps a very good 7.03 meters – it’s enough for silver.
(Photo: IMAGO/Eibner-Pressefoto/IMAGO/Eibner)
The Munich athletics audience was apparently still suffering from a slight hangover on Thursday morning after Tuesday’s intoxication, but the organizers tried to sell the quite expensive tickets spontaneously throughout the day. If you bought an online ticket, you got a second one for free with the discount code “Mihambo”. And no matter how they did it, the people came, despite the wind, rain and cold, and continued as energetically as they had left off on Tuesday. They celebrated Joshua Hartmann like a European champion when he reached the final over 200 meters, and they also showered Mihambo with applause – just as she was running in.
But first it was the turn of the high jumpers, Jonas Wagner, Tobias Potye from the LG Stadtwerke München, the host of the evening, and Mateusz Przybylko, the European champion from Berlin; although the 30-year-old is no longer in the 2.35-meter form he was back then. This was also reflected in sixth place, with 2.23 meters. On the other hand, Potye showed that he had his 2.30 meter form from June when he shared the German title with Przybylko: 2.18, 2.23, 2.27, he mastered everything on the first try – that could be worth a lot on such a rainy evening with a slippery start.
And indeed: Because the Ukrainian Oleg Doroshchuk just broke the 2.27 meters and also didn’t manage 2.30 meters, Potye already made the medals with two industry greats at 2.30 meters: the Olympic champion Gianmarco Tamberi and the World Cup third Andrij Protsenko Of Ukraine. The Italian was still struggling over the top, the master of the big moment, but Protsenko kept Potye behind him: silver for the 27-year-old, in only his third international outdoor competition and after injury-ridden years in which he almost despaired of his competitive sports career was. “It really made a buck,” said Potye into the stadium microphone, you couldn’t get much more exuberance out of him. But there were still a few helpers in the stands.
Tobias Potye celebrates a successful attempt – he starts for the club LG Stadtwerke München.
(Foto: Simon Hofmann/Getty Images for European Athlet)
And Mihambo? She had already offered 6.99 meters in the qualification, the corona infection that she had brought with her from Eugene after winning the World Cup suddenly seemed far away. Only after heavier loads does she still feel a bit tired, she said, but that would take the thrill out of her. And that was taken care of by Ivana Vuleta, under her maiden name Spanovic 2016 European Champion and Olympic bronze medalist. That was a small hit. Mihambo countered with 6.71, in the second attempt she flew to 7.03, now it was a match. But the 28-year-old couldn’t really unleash the last of her strength. 6.86, 6.95, invalid, 6.99 again. Perhaps the late effects of the virus cost the last few percent of the boost. “Maybe a bit of luck with the wind was missing,” said Mihambo with a smile that meant: The joy of her third European Championship medal would probably sink into her later.
Shortly thereafter, all that faded into the background anyway, when Mihambo suffered a circulatory collapse while still in the stadium.
The evening already had its golden point from a German point of view, almost like Gina Lückenkemper’s final flourish on Tuesday: Klosterhalfen’s run of improvement carried her to her first EM individual win among the active. On Wednesday, Annett Stein, the German head coach, emphasized again that Klosterhalfen in particular are noticeably feeling the aftermath of their Covid infection. And it started out in a way she didn’t like: slowly. When Yasemin Can, the 10,000 meter European champion on Monday, tried to break away again six laps before the end, Klosterhalfen was the first to follow, but now she still had her fast race.
The strong Norwegian Karoline Grovdal dropped out shortly afterwards, which was a surprise. And Klosterhalfen made perfect use of what she had regained her strength. After that, the British Eilish McCoglan, second in the 10,000 meters, had soon shaken off, seeing Can gradually lose her strength. Performed her long final sprint like a cyclist gradually shaking off her pursuers up the hill. “One of the best runs of my life,” said Klosterhalfen. The rest erupted in cheers, once again.
