Former world-class shot putter Nadine Kleinert does not give the Olympic core sport a big future. "If this continues, then athletics in ten years is dead - and the DLV is no more," said the 2004 Olympic silver medalist of the German Press Agency. Kleinert had ended her active career at the end of 2013 after 25 years of competitive sport.
Lackert attractiveness, scarcely a TV presence, the uncertain situation of the coaches and the missing financial security of the athletes sees Kleinert as substantial causes for the crisis of the sport. "The spectators prefer to go to a football match of the F-youth than to athletics," said the 43-year-old. "It's getting harder and harder to find offspring, starting from the bottom."
European champion from 2012 had also worked as a coach after her active career. At her former club SC Magdeburg she had been "labeled as a trainer", for 200 euros net per month. "Who wants to go for an Appel and an egg today? Standing in the hall from eight o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock in the evening and training a couple of rebellious teenagers who do not mind," said Kleinert.
World Cup silver with 12 years delay
About a dozen times, Kleinert was retrospectively upgraded after doping cases of her competitors; she kept a list, "where the worst is on it, but I've stopped counting." She has just received the information that she will once again get a badge: Silver instead of bronze from the 2007 World Cup in Osaka. The World Federation IAAF has invited them to the World Cup in Doha, which starts on 27 September. "That's a gesture, yes, but sorry, the working population has no time." Kleinert works today as a parcel delivery agent in the Thuringian Kyffhäuserkreis.
Olympia silver from Athens 2004 was also passed on Kleinert, because the winner Irina Korschanenko from Russia was transferred a few days after the competition in the ancient Olympics of doping. She won the Bronze medal at the 2010 World Indoor Championships in Doha only nine years later. After all, in a worthy setting at the German Indoor Championships 2019 in Leipzig. "I've stopped counting," says Kleinert. "I'll probably pick up the last medal with the rollator."
