Does that exist: You step on stage, but you don't reveal what you can do?

Long jump Olympic champion Malaika Mihambo made her debut in the season on Sunday.

In July she wants to defend her title as world champion in Eugene (Oregon), in August in Munich as European champion.

No prognosis can be derived from their sprint times of 9.35 and 17.28 seconds.

She ran them at the meeting of the crooked routes in Pliezhausen near Reutlingen over 80 and 150 meters.

Michael Reinsch

Correspondent for sports in Berlin.

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"The crooked stretches are always very relaxed because you can walk them without pressure," she laughed afterwards: "There's no comparison.

It's very pleasant for the start.” National coach Ulli Knapp, who has been in charge of Malaika Mihambo for almost two years, was enthusiastic.

He already came with Bianca Kappler and Christian Reif on the crooked routes to Swabia;

last year he started the gold-medal-winning season with Malaika Mihambo at the Schönbuch Stadium in Pliezhausen.

The organizers around the former runner Thomas Jeggle had to have their sports festival insulted as “amputee competitions” and faced threats from the association to ban the sports festival.

The advertised distances do not correspond to the regulations.

Today Jeggle and his friends laugh about it, they have long since won the vote with their feet.

Crooked routes with tradition

Six hundred athletes, four hundred coaches and more than two thousand spectators came together on Sunday;

the day before, the German Athletics Association held the German championship over 10,000 meters on the facility with victories for Alina Reh and Simon Boch.

1000, 600 and 300 meters - that was the beginning of the crooked distances of Pliezhausen in 1985, distances that trainers like to use in training.

You know what the times are.

150 meters were soon added, and finally, at the request of the national sprint coach, the 80 meters.

As a thank you, he came with the national relay.

Then, almost 25 years ago, national hurdles coach Volker Beck Pliezhausen discovered.

Since then, until his retirement, he came with top athletes.

The 300 meters with eight hurdles will probably remain in the program.

The 90 meters were held once, at the request of a single national coach.

"Now I don't know if that was a good thing.

In any case, it felt good,” Malaika Mihambo interpreted her sprint: “For the long jump, speed is the be-all and end-all.” In terms of feeling, the long jumper revealed that the pace was faster than in the past two years.

"I'm more stable again, I notice how I can hit better.

That’s going towards 2019 or the 2020 winter season.” She became world champion with 7.30 meters in Doha, and the following winter she surpassed seven meters indoors for the first time at the Indoor Istaf in Berlin with 7.07 meters – both of which are her personal bests to date.

The speed is returning that Malaika Mihambo lost when she took a three-month break at the beginning of the 2020 corona pandemic.

Despite this, she became an Olympic champion.

What is her goal now that she has all the titles and is gaining momentum?

"Have a good season and develop further," she says: "Perhaps working my way into new spheres, perhaps stabilizing at a higher level." She has known since Sunday that she has the pace for it.