Athletes at the European Championships: high-flyers and ratings heroes – Sport

They start next Thursday European Championships in Munich (11th to 21st August), and the state capital has made a lot of effort to be a good host. This multi-European championship is not supposed to be a pure high-performance sports event, but a big festival for the city, which is intended to commemorate the Olympic Games 50 years ago and involve the people. The grand opening on Wednesday evening (August 10) in the Olympic Park will give visitors a first impression of what awaits visitors alongside the world-class athletes. In addition to the sporting events, the “The Roofs” festival will open there (6:30 p.m.), bands, including rap star Marteria, artists and acrobats, and light installations will perform throughout the Olympic Park. Like many decisions at the Multi-EM, the event can be experienced free of charge. However, the focus of the championships is on the athletes, who compete for a total of 177 sets of medals in nine Olympic sports. If you don’t manage to look at all the decisions, the sports editors of the SZ will give you a little help in deciding who you shouldn’t miss.

Lara Lessmann, 22, BMX Freestyle

The difference between the Olympics and the European Championships? Lara Lessmann doesn’t have to think long about it: the family, the friends. Because in contrast to Tokyo, everyone will be there in Munich, the distance is much shorter. The joy at the European Championships is therefore huge, and the 22-year-old is also one of the medal candidates in BMX Freestyle. She finished second at the European Championships in Moscow in 2021, and finished sixth at the Olympics in Tokyo that same year, although she was still handicapped by the consequences of a broken collarbone.

In addition, the Berliner by choice, who decided at the age of 17 to move from Flensburg to a sports boarding school in the capital because of better training opportunities, has good memories of Munich. She finished second at the Munich Mash five weeks ago. Only the world’s best are invited there, it’s “not quite as serious as an EM”, but high-class cast. What is remembered is how Lessmann stood in an intimate embrace with Liszurley Villegas in the halfpipe, who she had just beaten. Toxic rivalry is alien to the BMX acrobats, the love of the sport is clearly in the foreground, says Lessmann. The favorites come from Great Britain and Switzerland, she says modestly, that was also the order of the winners in Tokyo. She clearly beat these competitors at the World Cup in May. The 22-year-old is happy to drive on the Olympiaberg, “probably the biggest course we will see in Germany”. In the final two runs are driven, the better one counts. The goal? Do as well as possible, she says, “let’s see”, and yes, it’s about more than the mash.

Kira Walkenhorst, 31, beach volleyball

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Admittedly, it is unlikely that Kira Walkenhorst will soon be able to pop the champagne cork again in Munich, as so often in her unique beach volleyball career. At the European Championships, which will be held on the very presentable Königsplatz as part of the European Championships, the 31-year-old and her partner Louisa Lippmann are just blatant outsiders. The interim duo got a wild card for the European Championship, but the partnership in the sand is not permanent anyway. Because the long-time national indoor player Lippmann, who now dares to jump into the sand, will tackle the Olympic Games project in Paris with Laura Ludwig, the woman who won Olympic gold with Walkenhorst in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.

The fact that Walkenhorst is still playing an international tournament is good news for the beach volleyball community. After the two European Championship titles in 2015 and 2016, the Olympic victory in Rio and the World Cup title in Vienna in 2017, she largely withdrew from professional sports due to injury and had triplets with her partner Maria Kleefisch. Her comeback on the national tour then turned out to be difficult, also because of the corona pandemic and the associated daycare closures. Most recently, the feared blocker won two tournaments in Hamburg and Bremen. And now, in the absence of Laura Ludwig (baby break), enriches the European Championships in Munich – as one of the great athletes in her sport. Walkenhorst wants to continue after that, her long-term goal is, in fact, the Olympic Games in Paris. With whatever partner.

Dimitrij Ovtcharov, 33, table tennis

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Dimitrij Ovtcharov recently stated that he knows this sports facility from basketball and thinks it’s “cool”. For a PR appointment with young people, the table tennis professional visited the Rudi Sedlmayer Hall (“an affair of the heart”) at the beginning of July, where FC Bayern usually throw baskets and where the European Table Tennis Championships will start on August 13th. For understandable reasons, Ma Long and all the other Chinese are not allowed to take part, which is why Ovtcharov, who is ninth in the world rankings, is clearly one of the favourites. The toughest opponents are Darko Jorgic from Slovenia (1. FC Saarbrücken) and Truls Möregardh from Sweden, Ovtcharov’s new teammate at TTC Neu-Ulm. The Germans Patrick Franziska, Dang Qiu and (if the damaged rib holds up) record European champion Timo Boll are also favorites in the men’s field, all among the top 15 in the world. “We have a lot of irons in the fire,” says Ovtcharov, 33. Of course, such a home EM is something special, he says, there have not been many such occasions in the course of his career. And this time, thanks to the Multi-EM, even with TV pictures! Unlike at the Team World Cup 2012 in Dortmund, which was ignored under public law, a missed opportunity in the media, although the Germans fought against China in the final and the Westfalenhalle was full. He found it “sobering” that it wasn’t broadcast.

Ovtcharov has moved a lot since then. His epic semi-final against Ma Long and the bronze medal win were ratings hits at the Tokyo Olympics. He then took a long break due to two ankle surgeries, but he’s back: On his comeback in Peru, he reached a World Cup final again. He thinks the moment is right now to tie in with Tokyo. To advance the sport further. His real matter of the heart.

Armand Duplantis, 22, pole vaulter

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He is the sunny boy among European track and field athletes: Pole vaulter Armand Duplantis, 22, whom everyone just calls “Mondo”, not only dominates the global competition, as he recently proved with his world championship title including a 6.21 meter world record in Eugene/USA asked. The Swede, who was born in the States, also inspires track and field fans beyond his two home countries. He also forms a glamor couple with girlfriend Desiré Inglander, a model and Tiktok star, who always cut a fine figure in the Swedish public. Duplantis is not an introverted thinker, but an athlete who turns his inside out. He celebrates victories emotionally, but also speaks openly about problems: Before his Olympic victory in 2021, he felt so much pressure because of his role as a favorite that he “almost went crazy”, he said after his most recent World Cup victory.

The son of a 5.80 meter jumper internalized the complicated processes of this discipline on the pole vault facility in the garden of his family’s house and set the first world record in his age group at the age of seven – 2.33 meters. He once decided to join the Swedish association so as not to have to go through the grindstones of the US elimination competitions. At the European Championships in Berlin in 2018, Duplantis won the first adult gold medal with a jump of 6.05 meters. The opportunity to win this title for the second time would now be in Munich. “Mondo” gives the event additional glamor anyway.

Lukas Dauser, 29, gymnastics

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Some athletes stay. They learned the first movement technique at home, then matured in the club, became medal winners at the local academy, and because everything always worked out, they stay there. It’s different with Lukas Dauser, he was also trained as a top gymnast for ten years by Kurt Szilier at the base in Unterhaching, but then he left. First he joined a training group in Berlin, then two years ago he moved to Halle/Saale, where he is now being trained by Hubert Brylok. He learned something from everyone on his travels, also because he is capable of learning himself, which was shown at the Olympics in Tokyo, where he offered his most important and best exercise to date: an almost error-free and wobble-free exercise on his favorite piece of equipment, the parallel bars , it then became the silver medal. He couldn’t hold a candle to the Chinese Zho Jingyuan, but even so it became clear that a change of location and new impetus had brought him a lot as he matured in a six-vessel sport. Whoever wins Olympic silver on parallel bars has mastered more than just flawless execution, but also the art of doing parallel bars elegantly, i.e. the ability to love an apparatus where you land on your upper arms from a considerable height and still smile relaxed can. Men’s national coach Valeri Belenki has also nominated Andreas Toba (Hanover), Glenn Trebing (Hanover) and Nils Dunkel (Erfurt). As of now, the well-travelled Dauser is most likely to be one of the medal candidates.