“Pressure on the boiler”: Tokyo hero Dauser from Unterhaching despite a broken bar in the European Championship final

Created: 08/19/2022 10:33 am

By: Gunter Klein

Survived the battle of nerves: Lukas Dauser after a successful parallel bar exercise.

© AFP/Christof Stache

A parallel bars breakdown throws the German gymnastics squad out of the concept - but Lukas Dauser from Unterhaching is in the European Championship final.

Munich – "The Olympic hero." "The "local hero." That's how Lukas Dauser was introduced in Munich.

At the home game, the Unterhachinger has to show himself.

He did it: he scored 14.766 points on the uneven bars, the device on which he won silver in Tokyo.

Dauser is in the final on Sunday.

His exercise was not without wobbles, but it was extremely difficult.

And the mood in the German squad just dropped when the star went to the parallel bars as the fourth and last man.

Andreas Toba, who had opened, was outraged because when he was doing gymnastics, the right bar had twisted. Glenn Trebing, who had previously been stable on the pommel horse, the rings and the jump, fell off the parallel bars, had to powder his hands and start again for the second part start.

Lukas Dauser was relieved to see that he was able to pull through his presentation: With his mouth wide open and his fist raised, the 29-year-old drove the audience in the Olympic Hall to cheer.

"There was a lot of pressure on the boiler," he admitted - and he hadn't failed to notice "that the hall announcer announced who was going to hit the parallel bars."

Thursday was dedicated to qualifying for the team competition on Saturday and the six individual decisions on the apparatus, which will conclude on Sunday.

A week earlier, the German women had started the successful weekend with two European titles and a bronze medal with a strong team performance.

The starting position for the men is not so brilliant: They scurried into the final battle of the teams in seventh place and took two individual places: Next to Dauser on parallel bars, Nils Dunkel will be seen on the pommel horse.

The DTB crew had opened on this device without getting tangled up, they also worked through on the rings before the flow was lost on the jump.

Then the parallel bars breakdown, national coach Valeri Belenki confessed: "My fault." Andreas Toba was the one who suffered: He noticed "that the parallel bars were ten to 15 centimeters too wide" and in elements "where you can't see the bar , if you miss it".

His summary: "We have two or three control mechanisms - and they all failed."

In the qualification, the champion is also determined in the all-around.

It was not to be expected that a German gymnast would end up in the medal ranks: Lukas Dauser took ninth place in the victory of the British Joe Fraser.

He found himself solid.

And was satisfied that he had thus secured the place in the final for the team.

Although it starts again on Saturday from zero, per apparatus with only three gymnasts instead of four and without a discarded result, that makes things unpredictable.

"Every fall is expensive," says Lukas Dauser.

After the preliminary performance in the qualification, the expectation is not in the direction of a medal.

However, one wants to orient oneself to the women insofar as "they just did their thing," says Dauser.

"One or two places up," he expects.

And on Sunday it's the parallel bars.

Valery Belenky will hire him accurately.