When Alexandra Burghardt switched to coach Patrick Saile three years ago, the two set themselves a goal.

She should no longer be the fifth wheel on the wagon, the one who came closest to the fastest women in Germany, but was not one of them.

Alexandra Burghardt no longer wanted to be a reserve runner.

The picture of success: At the European Championships in Munich, she was supposed to start for Germany in the Olympic Stadium.

Michael Reinsch

Correspondent for sports in Berlin.

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The plan worked.

"On ice.

On tartan.

Dahoam.” is written on a huge poster in downtown Munich that shows Alexandra Burghardt in the starting blocks.

It not only demonstrates the state capital's pride in this one of twelve Bavarian track and field athletes who will start at the European Championships this Monday.

Finals on Thursday

It also alludes to the fact that, alongside long jumper Malaika Mihambo, Alexandra Burghardt is the only one in the German selection of 112 athletes who has also won an Olympic and World Cup medal.

At the Winter Games in Beijing in February, the 1.82 meter tall athlete thundered to the silver medal as a brakewoman in Mariama Jamanka's bobsleigh.

Just five months later she sprinted to third place in the German relay at the World Championships in Eugene/Oregon.

She doesn't see herself at her destination for a long time.

She is still moved by the prospect of starting in the Olympic Stadium in 1972. "I get goosebumps when I imagine in training that I will start at this European Championship," she says.

Instead of the hundred meters, the final of which is scheduled for Tuesday evening, she is registered for the two hundred meters with the final on Thursday evening.

In the past week, Alexandra Burghardt has been busy exchanging tickets.

Friends, family and last but not least herself were surprised that she had qualified for the long sprint distance on her own.

At the World Championships, she had started over a hundred meters and was eliminated in 11.29 seconds - far from her best time of 11.01 seconds.

"There will be five hundred of my people in the stadium at the European Championships," Alexandra Burghardt once enthused.

Now she states: “The number follows me.

I thought that in contrast to international competitions, where maybe three people sit who you somehow know, in Munich there would be five hundred who are not strangers to me.” Now she hears from friends and neighbors who wants to come, who everything has cards.

"Let's put it this way: there will be a lot.

I hope I see them or at least hear them screaming for me.”

Athletes are absent

With the relay, Alexandra Burghardt ensured one of the few successes of the German team in Eugene.

Most of them have long been thinking about the highlight of the season in Munich, which will start this Monday with a performance show for endurance athletes: with the women's and men's marathons at noon and the women's 10,000 meters with Konstanze Klosterhalfen and Alina Reh in the evening.

The German national team won't really be able to make up for Eugene's blunder.

Malaika Mihambo, heptathlete Carolin Schäfer and walker Jonathan Hilbert are not yet in full possession of their strength after a corona disease.

A number of medal favorites such as javelin throwers Christin Hussong and Johannes Vetter, steeplechase runner Gesa Krause and triple jumper Max Hess are missing.

Athletes like Olympic silver medalist Kristin Pudenz, marathon runner Amanal Petros, 5000 meter runner Mohamed Mohumed or the young German sprinters, who lost qualification for the World Cup finals due to a mistake, can show what they can really do.

Alexandra Burghardt turned her life upside down for this opportunity.

Training differently, eating differently, sleeping differently – if the postponement of the 2020 Olympics had not given her a break to heal all her injuries and get to the bottom of all her ailments, she probably would not have reached the goal of her earliest dreams.

She just wanted to enjoy the days in Munich.

“A sports career is so short.

It's rare that you even have the chance and luck to have such an international championship so close to home," she says.

"Berlin wasn't that close for me, not like the EM at home." 2018, that was the time before the new Alexandra Burghardt.

The most beautiful stadium

For the sportswoman from Mühldorf am Inn, who grew up an hour's drive east of Munich, the big city was the gateway to the world as a child.

The memories of the family manifested in photos include pictures of the sixth grader Alex with the hammer thrower Betty Heidler and the shot putter Peter Sack, taken at the 2007 European Cup in the Olympic Stadium.

"Munich, with the spirit of fifty years ago," enthuses Alexandra Burghardt, "with its perfect size, with the Olympic Park: It's the most beautiful stadium in the world."

She has already run in it for training, on the old track.

Now there is a new one with a classic red surface.

At a media event, she took the opportunity to jog up and down the back straight. "Walking on this track: I'm very proud," she says.

She shares this feeling with her husband.

Newly married, he thought it would be silly for her to give up her name after all her successes.

Now his name is Philipp Burghardt.

Alexandra Burghardt has not only made a name for herself.