When most of the invited guests have already entered the ballroom, a latecomer in a jacket and sneakers jogs up the stairs of the old town hall. If the man had arrived earlier, it would have been noisy in the foyer. But as it is, he makes it almost unnoticed to just before the entrance of the ballroom. Then, however, the reporter teams pounce on him before he has to grin at the cameras for numerous photo requests. “It fills a whole photo album,” he says to a photographer who has captured the same motif 25 times. Inside, moderator Markus Othmer has to wait to say hello. Until Thomas Müller finally made it to his place.
On Thursday evening, the city of Munich honored 202 athletes for special achievements in the past year. Among them are world champions, European champions, silver medalists at Olympic Games. Thomas Müller has just become German champion, at the World Cup in Qatar he failed with the national team in the preliminary round. And yet he is the undisputed star of the evening. “Woah, Thomas Müller is coming,” marvels a young man as he reads the notice with the invited guests.
The range is large. And yet they all have something in common: a sportingly successful year behind them. For example, Markus Gündl, 46 years old, is there with five other members of the “Frundsberger Fähndl” crossbowmen’s guild. He became German champion with the team. He completes the sports honors ceremony with great routine: Gündl is there for the seventh time in a row. For Nele Wayand, 14 years old, it is the first invitation. She took first place in the team rankings at the German Championships with the air pistol. “I’m a little scared… all the people here,” she says.
The vice European champions in box lacrosse from the HLC Rot-Weiss Munich, on the other hand, see the honor as an opportunity to look back on the strenuous but good time. Marius Wolter, 33 years old, has been to a similar ceremony in Cologne before. “You could at least take your wife with you,” he jokes and announces that he wants to celebrate the European Championship success again with his teammates. They already hold the wine glasses in their hands.
“We are the number one sports city,” says Mayor Verena Dietl
In any case, the hostess is proud of her guests. “We are the number one sports city,” says Mayor Verena Dietl before the awarding of the Golden Medal of Honor begins – accompanied by loose anecdotes that moderator Othmer elicits from the honorees. For example, you learn that the President of FC Bayern, Herbert Hainer, was able to list all the Olympic champions in dressage when he was a “young guy”. Or that Thomas Müller would like to try hammer throwing. “Absolutely not during the season,” says Hainer. “You can do anything except skiing,” replies Müller.
Speaking of Müller: Two days before the top game against Borussia Dortmund, he broke the club’s internal rule of not making any media appointments 48 hours before a game, he admits with a mischievous grin. The honor at least provides a little variety in his busy schedule. But also for relaxation? “It’s usually not relaxed when there are a lot of people there. One or the other photo will probably go over the counter,” he says, even before the first flashbulbs go off. He should be right. Even on the way out of the ballroom, he doesn’t manage two meters without having to fulfill a selfie wish. As many pictures with Thomas Müller as on this evening are probably not created in a 90-minute football game. When the last photo request is actually fulfilled, Müller jogs back down the stairs of the old town hall. While the other 201 invited guests ate veal loin and curd cheese dumplings, the star of the evening was the first to disappear. In order not to violate the club’s internal rules any longer.