The javelin thrower Julian Weber was right back in his tunnel, as he later said – a place where wondrous things seemed to happen, portals to long-gone times opened. When the audience, who had not yet melted away in Kassel’s Auestadion, clapped rhythmically before his first attempt, he immediately felt “a bit of a Munich feeling” – like in the Olympic Stadium a year ago when Weber became European champion after many years of pain.
So he bounced across the track, half in Kassel at the German championships, half in Munich, almost 13,000 whispered and clapped. 85.59 meters.
Weber shook his head.
That didn’t change at first. Only after the third did his arm twitch up, 88.72 meters – Weber had not thrown further this season, worldwide only the Czech Jakub Vadlejch was better until the end. And then? Did he want to throw that darned 90 meters by force, which he carries but hasn’t performed in any competition yet. At the latest after the 88.72 meters, Weber said later, “the air was out a bit”.
Back in the top five nations in the world? An extremely sporty undertaking
It would have been different a year or two ago, when they would have probably engaged in a sizzling all-around: Johannes Vetter, the German record holder and world champion of 2017, Andreas Hofmann, the number two of the Berlin European Championship 2018, Thomas Röhler, the Olympic champion and European champion. Now only Röhler was there, and the 31-year-old with his 71.44 meters surpassed neither the 77.43 meters of second-placed Maurice Voigt nor Casimir Matternes 71.68, which were necessary to get on the podium. And Weber, who would probably have secured his third national championship title in a row with almost every attempt he made at the throw-in.
With that, the leitmotif of the weekend was marked out: The manageable circle of top performers in the German Athletics Association, who had made it to Kassel without an accident, is mainly in competitions with themselves. Otherwise, there was a lot of bland food on offer (or, as was often heard : Tension!). And the question of how a competitive team should grow from this, for the World Championships in six weeks – and for the years to come.
In any case, a tour of the departments up to Sunday afternoon did not produce too many highlights. Bo Kanda Lita Baere, who came second in the pole vault in Munich, won with 5.82 meters – World Cup and Olympic standard -, Gina Lückenkemper is still in “crass” form, Carolina Krafzik won her semifinals over 400 meters hurdles in a championship record and Olympic standard (54.47 seconds/54.87 in the final was enough for the title), Kristin Pudenz (65.98 meters) was the best discus thrower. Behind many winners such as Tobias Potye, who came second at the European Championships (2.27 meters in high jump) and the former European triple jump champion Max Hess (16.12 meters), there were large gaps in the results list. Still others won with meritorious performances, the 21-year-old hurdles sprinter Franziska Schuster (13.17 seconds) and Anjulie Knäsche, who as a part-time competitive athlete was the best pole vaulter this time (4.41 meters), but up to the international top is the Far away – to the European one, mind you.
Open detailed view
Heat with Olympic standard and championship record: Carolina Krafzik completes the 400 meter hurdles in 54.47 seconds.
(Photo: Stefan Mayer/Eibner/Imago)
The other is the injuries, which continue to plague many well-deserved workers, despite all the digital monitoring tools that the DLV wants the trainers to use to monitor the health of their athletes. After chasing the 100 meter mark for a while, Johannes Vetter has great difficulty finding a healthy start to a competition – the start of the World Cup is uncertain. Andreas Hofmann wrote off the season a month ago with a cruciate ligament tear. In the women’s triple jump, four top jumpers were injured in Kassel: Neele Eckhardt-Noack, Kristin Gierisch, Jessie Maduka and Kira Wittmann. The women’s sprint, which has been strong for years, is struggling behind Lückenkemper more than it has been for a long time, other up-and-coming athletes such as 400-meter runner Laura Müller injured themselves on the track in Kassel. The national coaches had also ordered many youngsters to rest, as the approaching U23 European Championship is more important. Athletes spokesman Maximilian Thorwirth said that the fact that the starting fields, which have been shrinking for years anyway – often cannot be filled – due to the compact schedule – makes him “concerned, to put it mildly”.
Ultimately, what was also reflected in Kassel was what German athletics has been dealing with more and more for years: A core Olympic sport is also fighting with itself, which culminated in the worst World Cup performance in history in 2022. You can already promise that the selection for Budapest will be “more efficient”, said head coach Annett Stein. This time, the World Cup candidates are not just satisfied with the norm or a place in the world rankings, which the world association now uses to fill the starting fields. This time, the athletes must also submit a stabilization standard specified by the DLV to prove that they are fit. She also said what Stein understands from a resulting, high-performance team: It should fight for places in the finals and semi-finals, not be eliminated in the first round.
Freely translated: The place in the circle of the five best nations in the world, which the DLV has planned up to the 2028 Olympics, is quite a, well, sporting undertaking.
For now, they have to rely on their few leaders, like Julian Weber. He’s finally been injury-free for a long time, “in a form I’ve never been in before,” he said in Kassel. He doesn’t want to compete in many more competitions until the World Cup, preferring to “train hard to become even more stable and explosive.” His bandage will need it.
