The hair color was the result of a losing bet.

Andreas Bechmann had made the deal with his decathlon colleague Kai Kazmirek.

The slower 400-meter runner at the meeting in Ratingen should compete as a blonde in the next major international operation.

Despite a new personal best of 47.68 seconds, the 21-year-old from Frankfurt lost the deal.

At the time, the Eintracht athlete did not yet know that the new look would be due at the U-23 European Championships in Tallinn and that he would use it to compete for the title of junior king of athletes.

Originally, Bechmann was not even qualified for the start in Estonia. When he met the standard for this in late June, the deadline had expired. The national indoor champion waited for a week for an okay from the German Athletics Association without neglecting his training. "Otherwise I would have made another decathlon somewhere," explains coach Jürgen Sammert's athlete. Now he can go on vacation and cure the injury that he sustained at the traditional event in Götzis at the end of May.

The bone edema on his left foot caused Bechmann severe pain at the weekend. "It was worse than ever," he says.

The medical team worked hard on the problem;

nevertheless, the athlete faced the task several times.

“I didn't believe I could finish the competition,” he says.

But Sammert had repeatedly encouraged him so that he bit his teeth.

The prospect was also tempting: in 2016 he had not even qualified for the European Championship in his age group, two years later he was eighth.

The two-time indoor European championship participant was the favorite for the last time they took part.

It was worth the agony to him.

"Made too much stress"

In the end, the gold medalist achieved a new best with 8142 points, and there were also individual records in three individual disciplines: in the long jump, where he landed after 7.72 meters in his only valid attempt in the third round, in the shot put with 15.81 Meters and in the discus throw with 42.51 meters.

The day after, Bechmann was still self-critical as usual.

The hurdles where things did not go as planned from the start remain his problem discipline, in the pole vault, where his best performance is 5.10 meters, he only managed the entry height of 4.80 meters.

One could blame both on the "hellish pain", but Bechmann is particularly not satisfied with his attitude.

"I made myself too much stress again," he said, he had to calm down in the competition.

What has been achieved does not allow the management student and start-up founder, who is one of the candidates for the “Sports Scholarship of the Year” award at Deutsche Sporthilfe, to stand out. In the next year he aims to participate in the European Championships in Munich and the world championships in Eugene in the American state of Oregon. With the final result that has now been achieved, there is not much that can be done. For comparison: his predecessor as U23 European champion, Niklas Kaul, secured the crown in 2019 with 8572 points. Three months later, the Mainz man was the men's world champion.

Bechmann therefore does not want to allow himself too much rest and will soon resume training.

The hope of a significant increase in performance in the near future is likely to stir up a look at the past season.

Numerous obstacles had to be overcome during this time.

In February his club organized a competition especially for him so that he could recommend himself for the European Indoor Championships.

There, in Torun, the sixth-placed lost a shoe at the start of the final thousand-meter run and completed the race without it.

After three weeks of corona illness - he had brought the virus with him from Poland - the foot injury occurred in Götzis, which stopped him halfway through the competition.

These ups and downs, not just in every competition, says Bechmann, "that's just a decathlon".