The top athletes feel at home in Erding

Created: 08/13/2022, 07:00

By: Dieter Priglmeir

The athletics elite will present themselves on the Schrannenplatz.

© Peter Bauersachs

The German national athletics team trains in Erding for the European Championships in Munich.

The top athletes are friendly and approachable - including superstar Malaika Mihambo.

Erding

– "Get dressed, get dressed!" shout the track and field athletes in the ballroom of the Erdinger Weißbräu, meaning Mayor Max Gotz, who has just received a shirt from the national team.

A suitable gift, because since the German Athletics Association (DLV) pitched its tents here - the official name of the pre-camp - is somehow all of Erding a bit of a national team.

Some more, others less - and the Webers in particular.

Kerstin and Christian Weber have been on the move in the Sepp Brenninger Stadium for days, where the German athletes have been preparing for the European Championships in Munich since this week.

Of course, the DLV has its own staff with it, but the Webers and a few other helpers from the TSV athletics department are basically the good family around it.

The relay runners, for example, praise the cake buffet that the Erdingers have set up.

"And not only that," says Kerstin Weber with a smile, while her husband also looks at the processes and training methods of top athletes and has recognized, "that the technique of the top people does not always correspond to the textbook.

They rebuild it to suit them.”

The sprinters Jessica-Bianca Wessolly, Lisa Nippgen, Rebekka Haase, Alexandra Burghardt, Lisa Mayer and Gina Lückenkemper (from left) trained in the stadium.

© Kerstin Weber

For once, the Webers are not in the stadium, but at Erdinger Schrannenplatz - because the DLV delegation is there too.

Around 60 athletes, just as much "staff" - official group picture is announced on Thursday evening.

Totally casual, by the way.

Without barriers.

That's a good thing, because there are also some Erdinger onlookers there.

Anton Bönig, for example, once a Bayern league footballer and athletics fan, who is particularly impressed by the middle distances and the relays.

Of course he has tickets for the European Championships, he says and admits that he no longer knows all the athletes.

Magdalena Reisinger, on the other hand, can even say who is not there.

"The pole vaulters are preparing in Leverkusen," she regrets.

The Upper Bavarian pole vault runner-up would have liked to have had a little visual instruction, "but it's cool who else is here".

Shot putter Simon Bayer is stuck in the ice bucket.

© Kerstin Weber

Above all, the superstar came, about whom some had already asked us in the editorial office: World champion and Olympic champion Malaika Mihambo made her first jumps in Erding on Thursday afternoon, she called it the "key unit" and then joined the group picture with a.

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Mihambo praised the long jump facility in Erding: "It's in very good shape." She is looking forward to the competition at this historic location, where Heide Rosendahl became Olympic champion 50 years ago.

An example?

The 28-year-old says that she is not a person who follows idols, "but I have the deepest respect for such achievements".

Not only athletes, but other personalities who achieve remarkable things on an artistic or humanitarian level.

She smiles confidently away from the pressure that weighs on a winner of all at a home European Championship.

It is important that you live up to your own expectations.

For them, this is more of a drive than a pressure.

“You can always see everything negatively.

I'm more for the positive."

That is also the key message from Mayor Gotz at the Weißbräu reception: "We should focus more on our strengths in Germany, not just look at our weaknesses." The athletes applaud, and Idriss Gonschinska, DLV General Director, says afterwards that he I liked this sentence best.

He recalls that the DLV was there 20 years ago.

Back then it was "nice here too", but the sports facilities are now on a very special level.

The DLV has been in contact with the city, the home of DLV Vice President Jochen Schweitzer, for a year.

“Many things have been made possible for us here.

Actually, all of our wishes were read from our lips.” That is why there is now a premiere: the awarding of the Association's Golden Medal of Merit to a mayor.

The premiere was "so important that the medal will be handed in later".

So Gotz gets the shirt in advance.

And as far as the medal is concerned: the mayor wouldn't mind if only a few athletes were given one.