Andreas Bechmann remains realistic: "Going into a decathlon with two handicaps and expecting to crack the Olympic norm would be presumptuous," says the 21-year-old athlete from Eintracht Frankfurt.
Nevertheless, the all-rounder still glimmers a little bit of hope for the set to Tokyo when he starts this weekend in the decisive Ratingen meeting.
"Everything is possible in the decathlon," says the German indoor champion.
So why not try to jump over the given 8350 points?
What sounds obvious to an ambitious athlete is by no means in this case.
Others would have given up in his situation, withdrew prematurely from the season in order to make a new attempt in 2022, when the European Championships in Munich and the world title fights in Eugene are due.
Because Bechmann has already had a long history of suffering this year.
Infected with coronavirus in Poland
It started in March at the European Indoor Championships in Torun, where Hesse finished seventh with 5995 points in the heptathlon. As with more than 50 other participants in Poland, he was diagnosed with an infection with the coronavirus shortly afterwards. To this day, Bechmann is annoyed that the causes were not dealt with properly. He and his parents, to whom he transferred the highly contagious B mutant, got it badly. He lay in bed for a week with severe symptoms such as fever and chills. When he took his first walks 14 days later, “I was out of breath after just 20 minutes”.
With intensive medical support, he started training again in mid-April, with the goal in mind of being recommended for the competition at the end of May in Götzis, Austria, at least for the U-23 European Championships in Tallinn.
Although he was fit in time after only six weeks, that should fail. On the first day, after the second long jump, he felt pain in his left foot. “I probably dove in there when I jumped”, from his point of view a consequence of the illness-related backlog in technique training. Nevertheless, Bechmann fought bravely, proving with a time of 48.18 seconds on the stadium lap that the form was right. “400 meters are a good indicator for this,” says Bechmann. A day later, however, he had to give up disappointed before the hurdles. Investigations revealed traumatic bone marrow edema in the ankle. An injury that, as the convalescent himself says, actually takes a long time to heal. With conservative treatment, he felt his way back to full load step by step.Almost surprisingly, the foot withstood this.
"Everything is possible, nothing is neccesary"
He had to write off the ticket for the U-23 European Championship.
Although this competition is scheduled for the beginning of July and the candidates in the individual disciplines can still fight for it until the end of the month, the German Athletics Association has limited the qualifications for the all-rounders to Götzis and the meeting in Bernhausen at the beginning of June.
"I don't know why that is the case," says Bechmann. "But I definitely want to do a decathlon this year." Because of the games in Japan, Ratingen is "without alternative".
The personal best of the management student, who will run his own start-up company after completing his planned bachelor's degree in autumn, results from 2019 and is 8132 points. "If I get into the competition well," the Olympic standard is not that far away. But Jürgen Sammert's athlete doesn't want to put himself under any pressure. “Anything can, nothing has to” - he has given himself this motto for a long time. He is still young for his profession. "The next Olympic Games are in three years."