It’s easy to be very generous with the label “international” at a sporting event. In case of doubt, the participation of a guest student from southern France is sufficient to justify it, in Bavaria a small delegation from Austria is also welcome. One can and should first of all say this Sunday about the Ludwig Jall sports festival of the LG Stadtwerke München: This is actually an international meeting. One for which track and field athletes from Great Britain, the Czech Republic and Switzerland gather in the Dante Stadium as well as from Nigeria, Jamaica and Lebanon. Mainly because World Cup points are being awarded here for the first time.
The Munich track and field association owes this to the excellent contacts of its president, Jochen Schweitzer, who managed to give the sports festival, in its 35th edition, world athletic status at short notice. The basic idea of the event already existed in previous years: the LG was happy to put together an internationally upgraded starting field around the special disciplines of its top athletes in order to offer them and the spectators an international level on their doorstep. This year, however, less persuasion was needed to attract significantly more ambitious guests: “Lastly there was a long jumper from Syria who lives in Berlin, best performance 7.87 meters,” Schweitzer lists, “a high jumper from Malaysia with me 2.28 meters… The fact that two Diamond League meetings in China have now been canceled and everyone is queuing for the rest makes it difficult for some.” What Schweitzer means: For the World Championships in Eugene in mid-July and the European Championships in Munich a month later, track and field athletes from all over the world are currently chasing norms and/or world ranking points. Because the starting places are already fought over for the qualification phase, as a meeting relevant to the world rankings, one could easily “dust off one or the other bargain”, as Schweitzer says. This is the D status, i.e. the lowest level of the Continental labels, where only the winners get points.
The forthcoming European Championships at home were of course an important argument for upgrading the sports festival: as an opportunity for the athletes from Munich to present themselves to the public before the big event in their city in an appropriate setting and to fight for important points here as well be able. However, Schweitzer is convinced that the state capital would have deserved a higher-quality athletics event anyway, which is why he would like to establish it in this form in the longer term. More than 400 participants have been registered, the main program takes place between 2.30 p.m. and 4.30 p.m. It is difficult to predict the interest of the audience, whose behavior has “fundamentally changed” as a result of Corona, as Schweitzer notes. The spectators should be attracted by the 800-meter runners Christina Hering and Katharina Trost, who have already qualified for the European Championships and who will each start over 400 meters on Sunday, the Kirchheim shot putter Christian Zimmermann, the LG sprinters Yannick Wolf and Vincente Graiani or the high jumper Tobias Potye , who are all hoping for EM tickets. The German champion Alexandra Burghardt, who is sprinting for Burghausen, will probably compete with Jamaican women in the 100 meters, in the men’s sprint a Jamaican-British show can be expected.
