President Friedhelm Julius Beucher stood waving a flag in the finish area and cheered Martin Schulz loudly.

When the triathlete finally got rid of the German gold curse at the Paralympics in Tokyo on the fifth day of the competition, Beucher's joy, but above all his relief, was palpable.

"The first gold rocket has finally ignited," said the 75-year-old: "A load has already fallen off."

All the more so as table tennis player Valentin Baus won the second gold for the German Disabled Sports Association shortly afterwards.

On Sunday night, the DBS team catapulted itself from 40th to 17th place in the medal table and dispelled the fear of a complete halftime disaster.

The Leipziger Schulz had felt the corresponding pressure to have to ensure a German victory in the 157th competition of the games.

“It's not like someone put the gun on my chest.

But I already noticed: Nobody could imagine that I would get anything other than gold, ”said the 31-year-old, who was born without a left forearm and had already won in Rio.

“That was already pressure.

But it also pushed me a lot on the last kilometer. "

"Worked so hard for so long"

Due to the schedule, most of the German gold hopes only start in the second half of the games.

Without gold after five of twelve days of competition, it would have been fatal for the internal mood as well as the external effect.

On Sunday Beucher was combative again.

“The Paralympics will end on September 5th,” he said: “Counting and accounting will be done at the end.

We still have a few gold rockets at the start. "

A little over an hour later, Baus turned out to be the next.

With 3: 2 sets, the Düsseldorf born in Bochum fought down the world number one Ningning Cao from China.

“You just can't describe it,” said the 25-year-old, who suffers from the hereditary glass bone disease: “I wanted to realize my dream of gold here.

We worked so hard for so long. "

The mood had been much clouded the day before. Although the DBS team won five medals, Saturday will be remembered as an unfortunate one. The clear gold favorite Leon Schäfer finished second as world champion and world record holder in the leg amputee class, five centimeters behind in the long jump. “The anger prevails,” admitted the Leverkusen man: “I just woke up too late. I know that I can do more. Maybe I was too relaxed. ”The 19-year-old South African Ntando Mahlangu, who won gold, was“ not on his screen like that. ”

Table tennis player Thomas Schmidberger lost after a big final fight with 9:11 in the decisive set against his long-term rival Panfeng Feng from China.

"It was close, but it's a defeat," said the paraplegic from Düsseldorf.

Stephanie Grebe (Berlin), also in table tennis, sprinter Lindy Ave (Greifswald) over 100 meters and swimmer Verena Schott (Cottbus) over 100 meters chest won bronze.

She has already won bronze in the 200 meter medley.

Not just happy faces

In contrast, the former Olympic bronze medalist Robert Förstemann was eight hundredths of a second away from bronze in the time trial on the cycle track.

That was not the only reason why the 35-year-old was frustrated.

“We worked our asses off.

But you feel left in the lurch, "said the native of Thuringia, who has been the guide for the visually impaired Rostocker Kai Kruse since 2019:" Some things went wrong in advance that you have to openly address and work on.

That was anything but professional. "

And on Sunday there were not only happy faces in the German team.

Athlete Nicole Nicoleitzik (Püttlingen) initially celebrated the bronze over 200 meters.

But the 26-year-old was disqualified for breaking the railway.

The DBS decided not to protest.

"The run actually felt ideal," said Nicoleitzik sadly.