I think you can now see what we were preparing for and why.

It was a unique atmosphere here in Munich,” enthused Alexandra Burghardt.

The sprinter from Burghausen, around the corner in eastern Bavaria, had just won the European Championships over 4 x 100 meters with the women's relay - and won the hearts of the audience anyway.

"That was the best advertisement we could do for our sport," she said.

Michael Reinsch

Correspondent for sports in Berlin.

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Gina Lückenkemper, over 100 meters and the fastest woman in Europe in the team, was not only enthusiastic about her personal success.

"Munich has shown the potential of our sport," she said: "It's incredibly cool." Javelin thrower Julian Weber looked stunned hours after his victory.

"I'm European champion," he said: "I've dreamed of a medal for years.

I worked for this medal for years.”

Without the intoxication of the great days in Munich, he suspected, the enthusiasm that jumped from the audience to the athletes, he would not be champion.

On Golden Tuesday he was there when decathletes Niklas Kaul and Gina Lückenkemper won the gold medals: "Since then I could hardly wait for my competition."

Association promises refurbishment

Alexandra Burghardt, relay starter and this year, in addition to the fresh gold from Munich, also the silver medal from the bobsleigh competition at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing and the bronze medal for the relay race at the World Championships in Eugene (Oregon), pointed out with her set of the attractiveness of the mood high in Munich also implicitly point to the low in Eugene.

Athletics President Jürgen Kessing judged in Munich that his association and those responsible for it were "publicly beaten down" after the World Cup.

That's probably why he wasn't in a celebratory mood, but instead promised to work things out and draw conclusions.

If you want to judge Munich 2022 solely on the basis of results, despite seven gold medals, sixteen podium places and first place in the medal ranking in athletics, you will quickly find that the level of such a continental championship is lower than that of the world championship.

The women's relay won in 42.34 seconds – a world-class time.

At the Tokyo Olympics, she was 22 hundredths faster in 42.12 seconds, but only finished fifth.

In front of her not only Jamaica and the United States, but also the team from Great Britain, which botched the first exchange on Sunday, and the team from Switzerland, which did not make it to the finals in Munich.

At the World Cup five weeks ago, 42.44 seconds, the worst time in comparison, was enough for the acclaimed third place behind Great Britain and Jamaica.

Weber won with 87.66 meters.

In his disappointing fourth places from Tokyo and Eugene, he had reached 85.30 meters, 14 centimeters too short for third place, and 86.86 meters.

But is this increase remarkable for an athlete who wants to finally throw ninety yards?

He himself should be the least interested in this question, he was so happy.

Attractive and fascinating

If you wanted to compare the 7/7/2 gold to bronze medals with the 6/7/7 from the European Championships in Berlin 2018, the medal table would have to include the newly introduced team ranking in the marathon, i.e. the gold medal for women and the silver medal for men , have to be adjusted, so you would also get declining performance.

But not the performance, and certainly not the world standard, was the focus during the seven days of athletics and the eleven days of the European Championships.

The competitions were attractive and fascinating even without athletes from Jamaica and the United States, without Kenyans and Ethiopians and made the approximately five thousand athletes happy and their approximately 1.2 million viewers in addition to the much larger television audience.

An example of sustainability

"We have created a summer fairy tale again," believes head of organization and Olympiapark managing director Marion Schöne.

If there hadn't been cloudbursts before the weekend, the Olympic grounds might have had to be closed more often due to overcrowding, and even on the seats without the protection of the tent roof, the Olympic Stadium would have been considered perfect because of its beauty.

Of course it isn't, but that didn't annoy the viewers either.

Munich 2022 also gave me a good conscience.

The European Championships are cultural followers of the prestigious events and only use existing facilities - an example of sustainability.

The swimmers were drawn to Rome with their European Championships because the Bavarian pools were too narrow for them with eight lanes, where they got ten.

Those who gathered in Munich gave new splendor to the 1972 Olympic site - stadium, hall and park - and the attached metropolis of 1.2 million inhabitants, which is excellent for sports.

Four years from now, the championships could move to the Commonwealth Games grounds in Birmingham or use the 2023 World Athletics Championships stadium in Budapest.

The track and field athletes want to reconsider their departure from the championships, of which they formed the epicenter.

They, too, have realized that competitions can create great emotional value beyond numbers and results.