Last Friday evening the two walking events of the German Indoor Championships took place in Erfurt (GER).
In Germany the two walking events are usually integrated into the Master Championships to give greater visibility to the few athletes who generally present themselves at the start, although our German friends have a team that certainly cannot be defined as a second category.
And so it was also this year.
The winners benefited from the absence of the best DLV athletes who are preparing the World Race walk Team Championships in South Africa.
Among them are the two winners of last year: Christopher Linke and Teresa Zurek.
5.000m indoor men
At the start there are four athletes.
Go ahead immediately to lead the race Jakob Johannes Schmidt (GER) together with Andreas Janker (GER) and Johannes Frenzl (GER).
Smidt maintains the leadership throughout all, the race with these split times each 1.000m:
- 1.000m: 4:00:00
- 2.000m: 8:18:93 (4:18.93)
- 3.000m: 12: 32.27 (4:13.34)
- 4.000m: 16: 49.53 (4:17.26)
The young German athlete (born 2001) who boasts a personal best of 21:46.79 established in Halle (GER) on 1.3.2019 and that this season had already scored a good 21.54.75 at the U20 National Championships (Neubrandenburg, 16.2.2020) was about to fulfill his dream of winning the absolute title of Germany.
To tell the truth he had already crowned it, as he had crossed the finish line in first position, when from the referee to video recording came the disqualification for breaking the former Reg. 163.3 (b) (now Reg. 17.3.2).
This disqualification was then also imposed to Johannes Frenzl (GER).
The victory then went to Andreas Janker (GER) who finished the race in 20:51.77
Second place to Steffen Borsch (GER) in 21:42.77
Let us smile on these two disqualifications, recalling a similar case: that of the Italian Indoor U18 Championships held in Ancona on 15.2.2019 when in the best U18 boys timed session, when 4 out of 12 athletes at the start were DQed for the same infringement.
As usual happens in Italy, some coach of disqualified athletes did not serenely accept this verdict and the usual controversy addressed to the judges with the usual refrain began: "few are already in race walk, if you are disqualified even for these secondary infractions in a while we will no longer have walkers ”.
We smile because we don't know if anyone in Germany will have had the same protest attitude.
We would like to remind everyone that it is not the advantage obtained by the discriminant underlying these disqualifications, but the respect of the Rule itself. Not doing so would lead to chaos.
For our part, therefore, we cannot do anything other than side with the two video recording Referees who took on this responsibility both in Ancona and Erfurt.
3.000m indoor women
At the start there are three athletes.
Josephine Alisa Grandi (GER) goes immediately to the lead, who will maintain the leadership of the race for its entire duration with these split times each 1.000m:
- 1.000m: 4:40.35
- 2.000m: 8:18:93 (4:49.23)
- last 1.000m in 4:51.24
Her victory mark was 14:20.82. But the young German (year of birth 2,000) will certainly have had time to reflect in her post-race since she did not lower the personal best for just 77/100 of a second (14: 20.05, obtained in Berlin, GER on 15.1.2015) .
Second place to Sara Friedrich GER) in 14:22.10 new personal best (previous of 14: 29.92 established at the U20 National Championships in Neubrandenburg, 16.2.2020).
Third place to Alina Leipe (GER) in 15:23.98.