Cologne’s Joshua Hartmann will start for the first time in a track and field world championships over the 200 m on Wednesday (08/23/2023) in Budapest. For this year, the German record holder has set a time of under 20 seconds as his goal. Can he do it on the big stage?
The fast sprinter will not soon forget July 9, 2023: Exactly one month after his 24th birthday, Joshua Hartmann made more than one exclamation mark on lane six at the German Championships in Kassel. He left the competition in the 200m final far behind in the ASV Cologne jersey, ran the last 100m alone, jubilantly raised his left arm five meters before the finish line and then looked in disbelief at the Scoreboard in the stadium: 20.02 seconds lit up there for him as the winning time – a German record!
Hartmann improved the record set by Tobias Unger 18 years earlier (20.20 seconds) by 18 hundredths of a second. His personal best was previously 20.33 seconds. So the man from Cologne had made a real quantum leap on his career. “I’ve worked a lot towards this moment of running a time under 20.16 seconds this year. I’m very happy, but I’m not shocked,” he said in the winner’s interview.
“I feel like the challenge”
A month and a half later, the German champion is now being rewarded for his strong performance in Kassel, with which he had clearly undercut the World Cup norm, with his first solo appearance at a World Cup. The anticipation of the run-up on Wednesday (12.50 p.m., in the live ticker at sportschau.de) in Budapest is correspondingly high, Hartmann said in an interview with the sports show: “I’m in the mood for the challenge.” For him, at the World Championships, his own claim is to confirm his record time “in a run with strong international competition” and deliver it again. When asked about a specific goal, however, he piled deep: “I want to get through the first round, then I’ll look further.”
22nd place in the World year leaderboard
If the student from Cologne goes to the starting block in top form in the preliminary heat, he can definitely make it into the World Cup semi-finals on Thursday (24.08.2023, 8.20 p.m., live on the first and on sportschau.de). With a time of 20.02 seconds, Hartmann is in 22nd place in the world’s best list for the year – and in Kassel he showed that a time under 20 seconds is by no means utopian. The basis for his strong running level this year is the “very good and constant” training work in the past few months. “I had no problems, was always fit, could do every unit. That’s worth a lot and I’m very grateful for that.”
“I only put pressure on myself”
He doesn’t feel any pressure from outside, said Hartmann when asked about the few hopefuls and top performers in the 70-strong German World Cup squad. “When I feel pressure, it comes from me.” The fact that it may now be on the track with international greats such as 100m world champion Noah Lyles or Fred Kerley from the USA spurs the 24-year-old DLV sprinter on more than it burdens him: “Look at them you look up, you use them as a guide or you look at one or the other.” He then added, laughing, “I hope I don’t look too bad off.”
With the 4x100m relay to the World Cup final
Hartmann, who achieved his best result on an international stage with fifth place in the 200m at the European Championships in Munich last year, will also compete in the German 4x100m relay in Budapest. After fifth place at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, the DLV quartet did not go so well recently: At the 2022 World Cup in Eugene in the USA, the end came in the run-up, at the European Championships in Munich the relay was disqualified due to a mistake in changing.
Things went better this summer: the German foursome sprinted to gold at the European Team Championships in Poland at the end of June. At the World Championships in Budapest, Hartmann and Co. now want to stay on the road to success. In any case, the Cologne sprinter, who came to athletics at the age of twelve, is optimistic about the pre-run next Friday (08/25/2023): “We have six boys with us who are in top shape and who are really up for it. So you can start with confidence watch our launch.” The clearly defined goal is to make it into the finals for the medals on Saturday evening (08/26/2023, 9:40 p.m., live on Erste and on sportschau.de). Incidentally, for the 24-year-old from Cologne, that would also be a premiere in his sporting career, which is already so successful.