A wrong strategy can cost victory, Frank Ullrich already internalized that at the biathlon.

And so it is hardly a coincidence that he set up his SPD-red campaign stand on the market square in Schmalkalden right next to a bratwurst stall.

A long line forms here at lunchtime, and Ullrich could actually stop, people automatically move up to him.

But he keeps running across the market, but usually doesn't get very far because he is recognized and addressed.

Stefan Locke

Correspondent for Saxony and Thuringia based in Dresden.

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Standing still is nothing for the 63-year-old man who is still very young in the SPD.

In the spring he joined the party.

“With full conviction.” He comes from a working-class family, his grandfather was a “passionate social democrat”.

Ullrich has been doing politics for quite a while, in the Suhl city council, where he is on the sports committee.

It is extremely important to him to readjust "the importance of sport in our society".

Are the structures still correct?

Why are so many children already overweight?

Do we need more role models, more offers?

Famous constituency

Ullrich is convinced that the awareness for more sport in society must be lived from below as well as supported from above.

It is also about prevention.

“We easily spend 10,000 euros on a new hip, but there is not enough money for sports clubs.” This is another reason why he is running in this general election, in his home town of southern Thuringia.

When he was nominated, it was not yet clear that the entire republic would soon be looking at constituency 196.

But then the CDU made the former head of the constitutional protection Hans-Georg Maaßen its candidate.

Since then, Ullrich can hardly save himself from national attention.

The race is close, but he thinks he has a good chance of getting the direct mandate, including beating Maaßen.

Ullrich has a reputation here of almost one hundred percent, because Oberhof, the former center of GDR winter sports, is also located in the constituency.

The world's best tobogganers, bobsledders and biathletes came from here.

The latter was Ullrich's favorite discipline;

He won nine world championships and also won gold at the Olympic Games in Lake Placid in 1980.

Criticism of athletes

After reunification, he worked as a national trainer for biathletes and cross-country skiers and again won numerous medals. "I'm still proud of how we formed a really good team from East and West," he says. Olaf Scholz visited him in the Biathlon Arena Oberhof in August. The candidate for chancellor managed five hits while lying down. “He did well, Olaf”, praises Ullrich, who also trained children and young people from the region here. The locals call him "Uller", many are with him on their own, they say "our Frank". His slogan is “One of Us”.

But Ullrich misses the sports team spirit from back then, and also the enthusiasm.

Only recently at the Olympic Games in Tokyo did he see too many athletes “without a real bite”.

"We are a performance society, but you can no longer really feel it," he says.

That applies to many areas of life, and one has to start with the very young to change that.

Teachers, trainers, educators should be convinced of the positive effects of sport and awaken the fire in the children.

Ullrich himself is now retired, but still as fit as the proverbial sneaker.

His two daughters have long since grown up, in his free time he skis and cycles, with his wife also tandem, and after election campaign dates he likes to go inline skating, 30 kilometers, he doesn't do it under that.

In the morning after the appointment in Schmalkalden and after doing sports in the evening, he shows up with a bandaged hand.

His wife, who supports him in the election campaign, occasionally anoints the wound.

“Nothing else happens,” dismisses Ullrich.

“The important thing is to get up again.” This also applies if the direct mandate does not work.

“I see it sportily,” says Ullrich.

"And I'll stay in politics, of course." In the state elections two years ago, he lost a gossamer against the AfD applicant.

However, if the SPD does as it does in polls, “Uller” could also move into the Bundestag via the party's state list.