In the stands of the Asaka Shooting Range, a reporter from China jumps out of his seat. He films the shooting range with his cell phone, where Qian Yang is still holding her rifle on her shoulder.

A small number lights up on the screen above her.

And if you don't want to screw up your eyes, you can also see what the reporter is doing.

He quickly scribbles a not so high number on his statistics sheet.

He celebrates a high number with a gesture or a sound.

And now he even jumps up.

Christopher Meltzer

Sports correspondent in Munich.

  • Follow I follow

It is Saturday morning in Tokyo, the first Olympic Games medal decision. Women, air rifles, ten meters. Not a cracker, but exciting, very much in fact. It has to do with the mode. Eight women shoot in the final, one is eliminated round after round. In the end there are only two left: Anastasiia Galaschina from Russia and Qian Yang from China. Before the last shot, Galaschina leads by only 0.1 points: 231.4 to 231.3.

A countdown is running on the screen. 50 seconds, that's how long you have for the final shot. Showdown. Galaschina pulls the trigger first. 8.9. “Ohh,” calls the reporter. That is little, too little. She grabs her face because she knows that this number won't be enough. Anything under ten is poor at this level, but under nine, that rarely happens. Then Qian shoots. Not good, but sufficient. 9.8. The reporter jumps up.

When Qian lets himself be photographed at the shooting range, a man leaves his seat in the stands. It's Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The evening before, in his opening speech in the almost empty Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, he said that the Games can give the world hope. But who can hope from him? The people in Tokyo, where the number of new Covid-19 infections has been increasing for days, probably not.

Now comes the time that Bach actually always rely on in crisis situations. At the time of the pictures. On Saturday morning it is Qian Yang's 21 year old student from Beijing. She bows in front of the stands, where a few officials and volunteers are sitting and clapping for a young woman who is probably just fulfilling a lifelong dream. A few minutes later the president will present her with the gold medal.

Perhaps not only the reporter from China but also Bach was relieved about the fallacy of Anastasiia Galaschina.

He does not have to hand over the first gold medal of these Summer Games to an athlete from the so-called Russian Olympic Committee.

Russian athletes have to compete under this name (and under a different flag) because of the manipulation of doping data in their home country.

As a team, not as a nation.

That is not enough for the critics.

Above all, you accuse Bach of not being strict enough in the case of Russia.

What they mean can be seen in Galaschina.

She wears a white-blue-red tracksuit.

These are the colors of the Russian nation.

The gold medal, Thomas Bach and Anastasiia Galaschina in a white-blue-red outfit.

That would really have been a picture.