Martin Hiller and Tamas Grossmann won gold again in the K2 over 1000 meters after gold at the World Championships two weeks ago. Also in the K2, but this time over 500 meters, the German duo Felix Frank and Moritz Florstedt led for long stretches of the race, but were overtaken by a Hungarian duo in the last meters and thus won the silver medal. In the C2 final over 500 meters Sebastian Brendel and Tim Hecker were happy about bronze. Gold went to the Spanish duo Adrian Sieiro and Joan Antonio Moreno. Also securing bronze were Lisa Jahn and Sophie Koch in the C2 200-meter final and Jula Hake and Paulina Paszek in the K2 200-meter final. Two-time Paralympics winner Edina Müller won the final in the KL1 200 meter class, with a gap of more than 1.5 seconds and a new European best time. In the last race of these European Championships there was silver again for the German Annika Loske in the C1 5000 meters final. She was only beaten by Maria Corbera from Spain.
In table tennis, the finals of the individual competitions were on the agenda and in both the women's and men's competitions these took place with German participation.
Dang Qiu won the men's final with 4:1 sets against the Slovenian Darko Jorgic. The 25-year-old, who already defeated record European champion Timo Boll in the quarterfinals, thus crowned his good performances. In the women's final, Germany's Nina Mittelham had to give up in tears in the third set against Austria's Sofia Polcanova.
Somewhat surprisingly, Nils Dunkel won the bronze medal in the apparatus gymnastics on pommel horse. Gold went to the Armenian Harutyun Merdinyan. Lukas Dauser was disappointed, who after Olympic silver could not win a medal at the home European Championships. On his favorite apparatus, the parallel bars, he had to dismount after a mistake and ended up on eighth place.
On the King's Court, the Swedes David Åhman and Jonatan Hellvig were able to secure the European title in beach volleyball. After defeating world and Olympic champions Anders Mol and Christian Sørum of Norway in the semifinals, they also beat Czech duo Ondrej Perusic and David Schweiner in the final.
On the 129.8-kilometer course in the women's road race, Lorena Wiebers of the Netherlands won in a photo finish against Elisa Balsamo of Italy, the world champion. Lisa Brennauer finished a close fourth as the best German in the last race of her career.
In the first decision of the last evening of athletics in Munich's Olympic Stadium, Germany's Marie-Laurence Jungfleisch finished only sixth in the women's high jump final despite a season's best of 1.90 meters. Yaroslava Mahuchikh from Ukraine became European champion ahead of Marija Vuković from Montenegro. In the men's javelin final there was the first gold medal for the German track and field athletes this evening. Julian Weber threw 87.66 meters on his fourth attempt, a distance that none of the other athletes could surpass. Jakub Vadlejch from the Czech Republic was second ahead of Lassi Etelätalo from Finland in third place. Eighth and ninth place went to the Germans Nils Voigt and Samuel Fitwi Sibhatu in the 10,000 meter final. Gold was won by the favorite Yemaneberhan Crippa from Italy ahead of Zerei Kbrom Mezngi from Norway.
The last two decisions were made in the men's and women's 4x100 meter relays. First to start was the German men's team consisting of Kevin Kranz, Joshua Hartmann, Owen Ansah and Lucas Ansah-Peprah. Started as one of the co-favorites, they could not finish the race, already the first change of the relay baton from Kevin Kranz to Joshua Hartmann went wrong. The team from Great Britain and Northern Ireland became European champions ahead of the teams from France and Poland.
The German women's team with Alexandra Burghardt, Lisa Mayer, the new European champion in the 100 meters Gina Lückenkemper and Rebekka Haase wanted to finish the home European Championships with a gold medal. This time, two other co-favorites, the French team and the team from Great Britain and Northern Ireland, were eliminated due to changeover problems. The German team took advantage of this opportunity and ran to the European title. Silver went to the Polish team ahead of the Italians.
Germany thus ended the European Championships Munich 2022 very successfully in first place in the medal table. A total of 60 medals went to German athletes, 26 of them gold. Second place in the nation ranking went to Great Britain with 24 gold medals, followed by Italy with 14 gold medals.
Text: Moritz Noeres
Photos: Daniel Kopatsch/Munich 2022