Sigi's tips: Athletics is slowly going under

Sigi Heinrich has been a sports reporter and TV commentator for decades.

There was once, apparently a long time ago, a sport that was called the “core sport” of the Olympic Games. Most of us have even had experience with it. Maybe at school if the long jump was on the program in the summer. Or a 50m run. There was also throwing of bats, although I have to admit: I never had a throwing arm. I could barely cross the Isar with a pebble. Nevertheless, I still liked athletics. As a commentator, I have experienced great, even electrifying moments, such as Usain Bolt's 100m world record in 2009 on the magical blue track in Berlin. With his shoelaces untied, he finished in just 9,58 seconds. Unforgettable. I can't find any other word for it. The run is still inside me. All I have to do is press an imaginary button in my head and Bolt starts. A fabulous world record over 5000m And now: 23-year-old Ugandan Joshua Chepkegei runs a new world record over 5000m in Monte Carlo. He only needed 12:35,36 minutes. He was exactly two seconds faster than the legend Kenenisa Bekele 16 years ago. He needed 60 seconds per lap. He ran with the precision of clockwork and in the last 400m he added a pound with a time of 59.6 seconds. That's crazy. And then came the Norwegian super talent Jakob Ingebirgtsen, who, at the age of 19, improved Mo Farah's 19-year-old European record of over 1500. And yet these were nothing more than short bursts of electricity. The sporting agenda only gave the event a secondary role. Athletics is one of the big sporting losers of the Corona crisis and also the postponement of the Olympic Games in Tokyo until next year. The changes are noticeable Currently, runners, throwers and jumpers are a species fighting for their survival. And the current situation is just the beginning. In the USA, for example, more and more universities are shedding their athletics departments. The funds are redirected to more prestigious sports such as football or basketball. The fast runners from the USA are still around, but who knows for how long. Added to this is the cancellation of the Olympic Games, because athletics in the USA only receives the attention it deserves every four years. The years in between drag on and on and the US aces can only make ends meet through meetings in Europe. There is no sports assistance or employment with authorities. This will shake the world of this core Olympic sport to its foundations and seriously change it. The problems also increase in endurance sports. Without marathon races, African runners will be deprived of their livelihood. In this area too, only the principle of hope is a shaky rescue option. Athletics currently exists in secret. Recent records have not changed that. Yes, they should even be treated with caution, because doping controls are not possible in the Corona times with the many travel restrictions. And anyone who, like Chepkegei, runs a world record after a four-day odyssey from Kampala via Nairobi, Istanbul and Nice as if he had just returned from a shopping trip, is raising doubts. Right now, with a pure heart, I would really like to be happy about such results. But there is no more room for that at the moment. The fear of the future is too great.

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Sigi's tips: Athletics is slowly going under

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