Which sports are covered in Munich?
The program looks like a rather random hodgepodge of established Olympic sports and occasional events. Athletics, gymnastics, cycling and rowing are the main focus. Table tennis, canoeing, sport climbing, triathlon and beach volleyball complete the schedule. 4,700 participants are expected, slightly less than half the number that participated in the Tokyo Summer Games. There are 177 gold medals to be awarded in ten days.
Initially, swimming also seemed to be part of the sports festival, but the European swimming association LEN has opted for a tournament in Rome. That is held at the same time.
How seriously do the athletes take the European Championships in Munich?
For the vast majority of participants it is an important tournament. Many countries send their best athletes. This also applies to the Netherlands, although some prominent people ignore Munich.
For example, athlete Sifan Hassan and cyclist Mathieu van der Poel are not present, because the tournament is not a priority for them. Sprintster Dafne Schippers has withdrawn with a back injury. Harrie Lavreysen is missing because the cycling track is too short for his taste: 200 meters instead of the usual 250 meters. That, he says, is too dangerous.
Other athletes from Tokyo’s Olympic success team are present, including the other track cyclists and rowing teams that won many medals. In road cycling, sprinters Fabio Jakobsen and Lorena Wiebes, stage winners during the Tour, are the main contenders. Athletics sends a serious delegation of 61 athletes, even though the World Cup in Eugene has just ended. The title chances of Femke Bol, Lieke Klaver, the relay teams and pitchers are much greater at a European Championship.
What is the purpose of merging nine European Championships?
The idea came from the Swiss sports marketers Nicolas Duchoud and Mark Jurg: the latter was one of the spiritual fathers of the Champions League in football. They assume that a large joint European Championship yields more airtime, generates more money and attracts more spectators. Broadcasting ‘Ten Days From Ten to Ten’ Olympic sport should counterbalance the lavish attention on football.
Munich is the second edition. There is a budget of 130 million euros, 100 million of which is provided by the city. Four years ago, the concept was launched half-heartedly by bringing together championships in two cities: Berlin and Glasgow. At the time, seven sports were part of the main program. It seemed then the intention to build the ‘European Championships’ with the three Olympic core sports (athletics, swimming, gymnastics) and a changing group of other sports.
Why did swimming drop out and what will athletics do?
According to European Swimming Federation LEN, the facilities in Munich’s Olympia Park are less good than in Rome. Which may also play a role: the LEN had an Italian chairman at the time of the assignment.
That choice does not bode well for the future of the ten-day sports festival, which must take place every four years. Although the dates for the tournament in 2026 have already been set, no organizing city has yet emerged. Athletics will also not be part of the party. The European Athletics Association EAA will organize a tournament in Birmingham or Budapest in two years’ time and will continue solo with a European Championship every two years.
‘Athletics will attract the most viewers and attention in Munich. That is clear,” said Vice-President Jean Garcia in FrancsJeux. “Collaboration is good for other sports, not for us. There are more limitations than advantages.’
How do the European Championships in Munich compare to the European Games? In other words: why do the ‘European Championships’ and ‘European Games’ coexist?
There is fierce competition at the administrative level between the European sports federations, which organize their own European Championships, and the European Olympic Committee, which launched the European Games in 2015. That tournament is also held every four years. Next year the third edition is planned in Krakow, Poland. In 2015 the tournament was in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 2019 in Minsk, Belarus.
The European Games count more participating sports than the collected European Championships, fifteen at the last edition in Minsk. But not all sports take the tournament as seriously. European titles could be won in only four sports at the time: judo, canoeing, badminton and boxing. Athletics and swimming allowed youth teams or only small countries to participate in Minsk.
Many European sports federations prefer their own title tournaments to the European Games for financial reasons. ‘The European Championships are their only income model. European confederations such as the LEN (swimming) and EAA (athletics) do not eat from the IOC’s rack. That Olympic money goes to the world federations’, said initiator Jurg in the Volkskrant four years ago.