“The lady with the fast legs and the even faster mouth”
Gina Lückenkemper (centre) surprisingly won bronze with the German relay over 4×100 meters at the World Championships in July
Source: dpa/Michael Kappeler
Olympic champion Ulrike Nasse-Meyfarth reacted with sharp words to Gina Lückenkemper’s criticism of German sports funding. “Populist nonsense” says the former high jumper – and attacks the sprinter hard.
It’s been 50 years since she became Olympic champion in high jump in Munich at the age of 16, followed in Los Angeles by Ulrike Nasse-Meyfarth’s second triumph at the Olympic Games in 1984 – one of the best athletes in the history of German athletics.
Now that the European Athletics Championships started in Munich on Monday, Nasse-Meyfarth has expressed her incomprehension about the criticism of the alleged lack of support in top-class German sport. You can’t understand the criticism.
In an interview with the “Tagesspiegel”, the 66-year-old spoke of whining, especially under the impression of the past World Championships in Athletics in Eugene. There the German team had only once won gold through long jumper Malaika Mihambo and bronze through the women’s sprint relay around Gina Lückenkemper.
Criticism of the high number of German EM starters
Lückenkemper then defended himself against exaggerated criticism and spoke about “where our athletes come from and what else they do and how they have to work their ass off to be able to compete against these full professionals”.
Nasse-Meyfarth rejected this: “The view of the lady with the fast legs and the even faster mouth that in Germany only semi-professionals compete against full professionals from other countries is populist nonsense. Being a full professional is always only related to earning money with the sport.”
Ulrike Nasse-Meyfarth, Olympic champion in high jump in 1972 and 1984, at an event in May
Source: pa/dpa/Marius Becker
Nasse-Meyfarth does not see the financial support as too low. “I don’t know what else is supposed to prevent an athlete from doing two training sessions a day like a so-called ‘full professional’ and maybe another physiotherapy session,” she said: “But I advise that, unlike the rest ‘full professionals’ who lose their free time and cavort in the social media, who are also busy with their studies or vocational training.”
The then 16-year-old high jumper Ulrike Nasse-Meyfarth sensationally won Olympic gold in Munich in 1972
Which: pa/UPI
Nasse-Meyfarth is looking forward to the EM days in Munich. However, she could not understand why 112 German athletes had been nominated for it. These are obviously too many for her because of the services.
