When Johannes Vetter became world champion in London four years ago, he had difficulties with joy.

Grimm spoke out of him when he said: “I think those in Dresden are going to bite their asses a lot now.

They should too. ”He had left his Saxon homeland, felt underestimated and disregarded.

That hurt even in the moment of greatest triumph.

Michael Reinsch

Correspondent for sports in Berlin.

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In the meantime, Vetter has arrived in Offenburg on the Upper Rhine, where he was once primarily looking for work with national coach Boris Obergföll - and with himself. "I've had a tough couple of years," says the 28-year-old. “I had to be patient and work very hard. My whole mentality grew up. I see the sport differently than before. "

His mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor;

she died in November 2018. He broke his ankle and suffered pain when he started the following year.

The Obergföll family, former world javelin champion Christina and her husband Boris, appeared to be adopting cousins ​​in addition to their young children.

“Boris was one of my role models as a javelin thrower,” says Vetter.

“He's so great as a person too.

Sometimes we try to describe our relationship.

Sometimes we say it's like father and son, sometimes it's like a marriage.

We go through good and bad times in a sporting career together. "

Hope for the "one clean hit"

Vetter has lived in Offenburg, a town of 60,000 people, for seven years. He found his partner there, he has been a member of the city council for two years via the list of free voters and, as he says, deals with sports, kindergartens and schools. His brother and father also moved to town. "I will definitely stay in the area forever," says Vetter. “Such a high quality of life, the nature in the area, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Karlsruhe only a stone's throw away. And I'm so well connected. "

Home and family are good for cousins. “I'm a lot more relaxed,” he says. “I know my potential. Maybe that’s why I’m so strong. ”His favorite this Saturday (1:00 p.m. CEST on the FAZ live ticker for Olympia, on ZDF and on Eurosport) is the competition he has been dreaming of since he was six years old in Dresden Time went to the athletics club.

With 96.29 meters, Vetter achieved the longest litter of the year, with 97.76 meters last year he came closer to Jan Zelezny's world record than anyone before.

Of the first twenty litters on the leaderboard, nine were from Vetter and six from the Czech.

Vetter believes that his 1996 record in Jena, 98.48 meters, and even a hundred-meter throw is possible, but not predictable.

“One clean hit” is how he describes the three-digit result that everyone asks him for: “The perfect throw with perfect technique.

So much has to be right: angle, speed, that's like winning the lottery. "

"Robert Harting would be the best"

This is the optimistic outlook. And there is the pessimistic one, especially since the throws in the qualification were not really easy for him. Would the first defeat in twenty competitions, of all things, the final of the Olympic Games be the biggest disappointment? "No. I would be sad for sure, but I will always fight, "replies Vetter. “That's life: you can't always win. Sometimes you have to lose to get better. But that's not my goal in Tokyo. "

When asked whether he could imagine becoming involved in sports politics, Vetter evades. He wanted to do sports at this level for a few more years and then maybe become a coach, preferably national coach, after all, nobody in Germany threw any further than him. “Maybe I'm the right one for this job.” For sports politics, he brings a good friend from Berlin into play: “Robert Harting would be the best to become DOSB President. The associations are outdated and Robert is young enough to have a connection to the athletes and to politics. "When the Olympic discus champion was still active, he was impressive:" He was the German athlete. "Harting represents Vetter's interests with his agency; Work and family did not allow for such a commitment, he says.

Johannes Vetter obviously had to learn how to deal with the public in 2017. What about the fame today? “Could be better,” he thinks. "You have to throw as far as I do to get noticed by the newspapers and television if you're not playing football." Let's see what he says when he's an Olympic champion.