European Championships Munich: The highlight of the year as an Olympic signal?

As of: 08/10/2022 9:11 p.m

There was still heavy hammering, drilling and screwing on Tuesday evening (08/09/2022) at Munich’s Königsplatz. Everywhere men in bright yellow safety vests, sometimes you could hear them parroting French, sometimes speaking German – in between the men also switched to English. Some things everyone has to understand on the construction site.

By Johannes Kirchmeier, Munich

From the outside, the whole thing looked like quite a hustle and bustle – just like in the Olympic Park, where the final construction work on and around the sports facilities was still being done on Wednesday. But if you were to believe the workers, then it was all a coordinated hustle and bustle on the stage at Königsplatz and on its meter-high walls.

Where, from Friday, Europe’s best climbers will compete at the European Championships. Even their refrigerators in the athletes’ tent were still sealed. Everything has to be ready by Thursday morning, when the women’s qualification in the lead and the men’s qualification on the boulder start.

Memories of the Olympic Games

The German co-favorite Yannick Flohé from the Aachen Alpine Club section, who won the Boulder World Cup in Brixen in June and spoke about the venue at the opening press conference of the games on Wednesday evening, will be there.

“I’ve already been sent a picture of Königsplatz. It looked really great, even when it was only half set up.” But he was also honest, when climbing he would not notice much of the scenery between the Glyptothek and the collection of antiquities.

If such a sports facility is only completed shortly before the start of the competitions because something was unexpectedly delayed, then it is inevitably reminiscent of the Olympic Games. Whether Athens 2004 or Rio de Janeiro 2016, everything was finished in the end. And that’s how it will be in Munich, which is also marked by the 50th anniversary of the 1972 Olympics.

The goal is quickly stated: get the population used to major events

In any case, the thoughts of the Olympic Games are obviously very convenient for the organizers. “We want to set a good example and leave a legacy and legacy for future major sporting events”, says Marion Schöne, Managing Director of Olympiapark München GmbH. That the German population, who were actually rather skeptical, could finally imagine organizing further major events – “up to the Olympic Games”.

That is quite a statement in the Olympic, or rather IOC-critical country. After all, German bids have failed seven times since 1986, and several times, as with the envisaged Munich bid for the 2022 Winter Games, the citizens were against it. Now a successful, colorful event should apparently get Germany used to major events again. Munich is just the starting signal for many more in the coming years, said Juliane Seifert (SPD), State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior.

as “Mini Olympia” the Upper Bavarian sprinter Alexandra Burghardt feels the European Championships in nine sports from August 11th to 21st in her home country, and expects a “Fetzgaudi”, so a lot of fun. 4,700 athletes are fighting for 177 sets of medals at the European Championships in Munich. It is also the largest multi-sport event in the country since the 1972 Olympics.

Mix of sport and festival

The people of Munich also want to make an impression with the combination of sport and a free festival, where, for example, the rapper Marteria or the band Sportfreunde Stiller perform. When Burghardt, Schöne, Seifert and Flohé, among others, spoke there, they were standing in the so-called “Home Roof” on the Olympiaberg in front of flying BMX cyclists who took their ramps and performed tricks.

The organizers have paired festival stages around the competition venues, the local beer garden on the mountain with Bavarian beer tent sets and wood chip flooring is just one of them.

250,000 tickets sold – target almost twice as high

The goal seems achievable, even though advance sales have been sluggish. At the opening ceremony on Wednesday evening, the Olympic Park was packed like never before. Just a few minutes after 8 p.m. – the Sportfreunde Stiller were playing the ARD song “Spectacular” on stage – the Munich police tweeted: “The Olympic Park is closed due to overcrowding.”

250,000 tickets have been sold in advance, Schöne reported beforehand: “I think that a lot of people are now making short-term decisions and buying tickets.” Quite possible after the exceptional turnout at the opening ceremony.

The organizing committee is planning 450,000 paying visitors, so the OC is expecting a total of one million visitors during the Multi-EM. Should the stadiums in the Bavarian capital be full at the end of the day in glorious summer weather, that should also be a signal for German bids.

Athletes are looking forward to the European Championships at home

Regardless of the major political goals, Burghardt and Flohé are already looking forward to their highlight of the year, their European Championships at home, you could tell that on Wednesday. “I leave Munich happy if my competition was fun”, says Flohé – without ambitious medal goals. And then? The helpers in their bright yellow warning vests will dismantle the facility on Königsplatz and the beach volleyball stadium right next to it with hammers and cordless screwdrivers.

ttn-9