In the end nothing worked. The German women’s track four fell apart completely, Franziska Brauße and Co. rolled sporadically across the finish line at the World Championships in Glasgow and experienced a huge disappointment two years after the furious Olympic victory in Tokyo.
In contrast, the German sprinters remain on the road to success. Emma Hinze made it into the second round after initial difficulties in Keirin’s sprint, as did defending champion Lea Sophie Friedrich and Alessa Catriona Pröpster.
In the foursome, on the other hand, there was frustration. “It was a worm. It didn’t go well the whole time,” national coach André Korff quarreled after Brauße, Lisa Klein, Lena Reißner and Mieke Kröger in the 4000-meter team pursuit with a very poor time of 4:18.527 minutes landed in seventh place.
Power curve goes down
No comparison to his own world record two years ago in Tokyo (4:04.242), when at least Brausse, Klein and Kröger were part of the team. At that time, the foursome – led by Lisa Brennauer, who has since retired – was on everyone’s lips. Olympic champions, world champions, European champions – and to top it all off there was the honor in the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden as Germany’s team of the year.
Since then, however, the performance curve has gone down – with the low point in Glasgow. “It didn’t go well, you could see that. I already said in the box: We win together, we lose together. Today we rather lost,” said Brausse of the dpa. Especially the 22-year-old Reißner, who came on the team for Laura üßmilch, could not keep up with the pace. “Lena is a super young athlete who definitely has potential, also in the direction of Paris. Today may not have been her day,” explained Brauße.
“There are still some reserves”
So the German team was only in the role of spectator in the finals. The national coach also found it difficult to investigate the causes. “Replacing Lisa Brennauer is not easy,” said Korff, but also pointed out: “We’re not in top form. We should think about how we can improve towards the Olympics. There are still some reserves.”
The team and coach want to stick to the goal of the Olympic medal. “We’re still on the right track for next year,” said Brausse. Korff emphasized: “The first two teams were relatively far away. But from third to seventh place it was relatively close together.” The national coach doesn’t see any changes in the team: “I assume that this is the way towards the Olympics.”
This means that both German foursomes are not ready for a medal a year before Paris. The men’s team had also finished seventh the day before and didn’t stand a chance against teams like new world champions Denmark.
So the wait for a World Cup medal continues after 21 years. From the former success story in cycling – German men’s teams drove in the past five Olympic victories and 16 world championship titles – not much is left. The dry spell for women should not last that long.
