Ninety athletes have been nominated for the German Olympic team since Saturday.

Among the celebrities and successful people who are missing from the list - the Olympic champions Thomas Röhler and Christoph Harting, the former world champions Raphael Holzdeppe and David Storl - also belongs the three-time Paralympics winner Markus Rehm.

Michael Reinsch

Correspondent for sports in Berlin.

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    In contrast to the aforementioned, the long jumper is in top shape and has far exceeded the Olympic standard - 8.22 meters in his discipline.

    With a prosthesis, he jumped 8.62 meters this year.

    This is a Paralympic world record, but not an increase in the German record that Lutz Dombrowski has held since the Olympic Games in Moscow in 1980 at 8.54 meters.

    “It's about the message for me,” said Rehm: “I'm not fighting for medals, I'm fighting for the idea of ​​diversity, diversity, inclusion in sport.” How could the International Olympic Committee (IOC) better meet its own claims be considered with his participation?

    Rehm quoted from a statement by the Executive Board of the IOC last June: “The Olympic Games are a very powerful global demonstration against racism and for inclusion. They are a celebration of the unity of humanity in all our diversity. ”Rehm says:“ Let's do it exactly like that! ”He does not take anything away from anyone, neither a starting place nor a placement.

    He does not say that he would give the Olympics a new facet, another theme.

    Rehm demonstrates how important this is with the episode of a seventeen-year-old from the sports boarding school in Leverkusen.

    In the school competition "Youth trains for the Olympics", because he had to run with a prosthesis, he was not allowed to start the relay with his friends and schoolmates.

    “That can't be true,” comments Rehm.

    It is important to change perception.

    German champion in the long jump

    In 2014 in Ulm, Rehm became German long jump champion in the DLV title fights.

    The association then changed the rules.

    Since then, Rehm has started outside of the classification.

    Now the DLV has proposed Rehm for Tokyo - also there in a separate evaluation.

    “The prerequisite for this was that not three DLV long jumpers were able to meet the qualification requirements by the end of the nomination period on June 29, 2021,” he said.

    “This proposal was based on the national provisions that have been in force since 2015, which allow Paralympic and Olympic athletes to start jointly with 'separate evaluation' nationally.

    In this way, world-class para-athletes like Markus Rehm and Olympic athletes could present themselves together at the highest level in competitions despite the different mechanics of performance. "

    The German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), in its function as the National Olympic Committee, wants to nominate Rehm on the condition that the World Athletics Federation gives him a start permit.

    World Athletics, on the other hand, does not consider itself responsible.

    The decision to integrate the Paralympics winner from London and Rio into the Olympic competition in Tokyo without him being able to become an Olympic champion must be made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

    Registration closes on this Monday.

    It is no longer just a question of whether Rehm has an advantage in that he does not jump off with his left leg, often called "biological leg" in the discussion, but with his high-tech carbon spring, which in competition uses the right one Replaced the lower leg that he lost in an accident as a teenager.

    "If he doesn't do that, I don't believe the DOSB at all"

    Rule 6.3.4, according to which an athlete has to prove that his mechanical aid does not give him any advantage, was ruled by the Supreme Court of Justice in Lausanne (Cas) as "unlawful and invalid" in the autumn of last year.

    In the Blake Leeper case, he decided against the sprinter, who wanted to get his starting right on two extra-long prostheses.

    But he decided to reverse the burden of proof: it is not the athlete's duty to prove that he has no advantage, but the association has to prove the advantage through the prosthesis.

    Rehm sees himself on the safe side, should this be the decisive question. It was the subject of a study published in 2016, in which scientists from Cologne, Tokyo and Boulder (Colorado) found that an advantage of his carbon prosthesis, which replaces his left lower leg, could not be proven, especially since it caused Rehm to start up more slowly than a non-disabled person . At the German championships in Braunschweig this year, Rehm reached 8.29 meters. The champion was Fabian Heinle with 7.81 meters.

    Robert Harting, Olympic champion in discus throwing in London 2012, represents the long jumper with his agency brandstalentsrights. The DOSB should nominate Rehm because it was the right decision, he demands: “Then I believe what he says. Then I believe his confession, together we are stronger. Then I believe that the DOSB wants to play a role in society. You just have to be first, have the courage to make a difference. If he doesn't do that, I don't believe the DOSB at all. "