Her head turned to the left and everything was the same as always: Emma Hinze stared at her opponent, remaining motionless, at such moments she almost looked as if she wanted to eat the other right away. The French Mathilde Gros knows that, she stared back, eye contact is part of the start anyway. Her opponent probably didn’t realize how bad Hinze was, either before or after the start, and who knows: maybe Mathilde Gros wasn’t doing much better either.
Anyway, after the race on Monday evening, everything was back to normal. The Munich audience cheered, Hinze cheered, and soon afterwards the German anthem rang out for Hinze’s third gold in her third competition. And when she then answered questions in the interviews, she wasn’t standing – she was sitting. Exhausted on a chair that had been placed in the mixed zone, just like on Saturday after winning the 500-meter individual time trial. “Today I went through all the emotions,” said the 24-year-old from Cottbus, “I threw up, I cried, I thought I couldn’t do it.”
She couldn’t eat anything that day, whether from exhaustion or because of real stomach problems. The whole team built her up, gave her energy and tips, the national coach explained to her exactly what she had done tactically wrong in the run before that, the second of the three sprints in the final of the supreme discipline. It all seemed to help in some way, even if Hinze had strongly assumed that her third win would definitely not come to fruition.
Before the sprint, two riders fall heavily and are taken to Munich clinics
Most of the people in the Munich Velodrom probably thought so until shortly before the finish line, because Gros had fended off every overtaking attempt on these three laps from the leading position, until, yes: until a few centimeters before the finish line, when Hinze’s front tire pushed past by a tiny bit . This was ultimately shown by the slow motion of the finish line, which could also be seen on the hall monitors. Hinze reported that she only realized her victory when the audience suddenly began to cheer.
Very tight decision: Emma Hinze (left) wins gold with a mini lead against Mathilde Gros from France.
(Photo: Sirotti Stefano/Imago)
It probably wouldn’t have worked out with this razor-thin third success, if in the Omnium race, which was scheduled between her second and third sprint against Gros, another violent fall hadn’t happened in the evening. Similar to Italian World Champion Letizia Paternoster, who broke her collarbone and suffered a concussion on Saturday, several riders fell again exiting the same steep corner.
The Greek Argiro Milaki and the Ukrainian Ganna Solovej were bleeding on the track, were treated behind screens for about half an hour and then taken to Munich clinics. Such accidents are bad, Hinze said later. It was not yet known how the two were doing. As a driver, you have to let that bounce off you first. In any case, the long delay before her final assignment certainly helped her to regain some strength.
Hinze does not do the keirin, the World Cup will take place soon: “I want to be good at it.”
It was the fifth day of competition in the Munich exhibition hall. On the second she had won gold in the team sprint with Pauline Grabosch (Chemnitz) and Lea Sophie Friedrich (Cottbus). Then, in a record time, the 500-meter time trial, from which she didn’t expect anything, which, according to her own statement, she rode more “for fun” – which she then did. And on Tuesday, the sixth and final day, the fight sprint, keirin, should also take place, one of her strengths. But then she gave up. “I pushed my limits again today,” she explained. The World Cup takes place in October, “I want to be good there”. She already has five world championship titles, the woman from Lower Saxony, who moved to the base in Cottbus years ago.
By the way, when the Frenchwoman Mathilde Gros and Emma Hinze met again in the interview zone, they no longer stared at each other, but hugged each other warmly. “We are perhaps the biggest opponents on the track, we look at each other angrily, but she is super likeable,” said Hinze, both wanting to show respect to each other. “I think athletes like that are great.”
She also thinks the concept of the European Championships is super great, because it gave her fringe sport an unusual media presence during the days at the Munich exhibition center – which Hinze then used excellently to advertise track cycling and for herself. At least on television she also had a hand other sports, she said, like climbing. Would you like to watch other sports live? Emma Hinze only has to think for a moment, then she does it as usual, just says with a grin what’s going through her head: “No, I want to go home to my bed.”