The week after the Mehrkampf Meeting Ratingen 2024, I was back in athletics already. Braunschweig was calling for the German Athletics Nationals (Deutsche Meisterschaften Leichtathletik). Two competitions, the 5000m finals for men and women, have already been held on Friday, but I joined for the main schedule on Saturday and Sunday. Here is my report from the track events of the first day of the two day event, 29th June 2024.

 

This posting comes with 774 major size pictures in a dedicated event section of the sports gallery.

 

Eintracht Stadion Braunschweig – The Venue

Eintracht Stadion in Braunschweig was the host venue of the event. The stadium is typically known as the home ground of Eintracht Braunschwieg, who currently compete in the 2nd German Soccer Bundesliga. American Football fans also know the stadium as home of the New Yorker Lions. The stadium has been opened in 1923 for the fist time and has a capacity of some 24,000 people. Parking capacity around the stadium was a bit of limited, also due to another event, but the stadium in the North of the city is quite nicely connected by tram (Stadion / Schwarzer Berg stop, lines 1 and 10). There are also some bus connections.

 

German Athletics Nationals 2024 – Day 1 Track Events

The first track events of the day were the 100m heats. On the men’s side, five heat reduced 38 athletes to 16 semifinalists, with Lucas Ansah-Perrah (Hamburger SV) having the best time of 10.30 seconds, winning the second heat. On the women’s side, there were even full 40 sprinters in five heats. The fastest runner was Neuköllner SF’s Lisa Marie Kwayie, who won the fourth heat with 11.34 seconds.

The next events were the hurdles sprint semifinals, with three heats each. TSV Bayer Leverkusen’s Tim Eikermann was the fastest runner on the men’s 110m hurdles with 13.74 seconds. In the 100m hurdles on the women’s side, Ricarda Lobe (MTG Mannheim) was the quickest athlete (13.06 seconds). Thereafter, Braunschweig hosted three 400m hurdles semifinals each. On the women’s side, favorite Carolina Krafzik (VfL Sindelfingen) dominated the races with a qualifying time of 55.59 seconds. The same club also had the fastest runner on the men’s side. Constantin Preis’ 50.20 seconds was the fastest time of the three heats, turning himself into a favorite role for the Sunday final heats.

Steeplechase and the fastest Runners

The first race final in Braunschweig was the 3000m Steeplechase race on the men’s side. LG Stadtwerke Tübingen’s Frederik Ruppert’s race was the first highlight of the German Athletic Nationals on the race track. He won the final with 8:16.98 minutes, which beat the almost 39 year old meeting record by more than three seconds. Needless to say that no other athlete could keep up with that pace. VfL Sindelfingen’s Velten Schneider finished second with almost ten seconds distance, third-placed Niklas Bucholz (LSG Höchstadt/Aisch) crossed the finish line some 15 seconds after Ruppert.

Thereafter, the Eintracht Stadion hat four finals in a row. First of all, there were the hurdles sprint finals. Manuel Mordi (Hamburger SV) won the photo finish in the 110m hurdles, having the same time (13.54 sec) as Tim Eikermann. The fastest woman on the women’s side was Ricarda Lobe (MTG Mannheim), who became German champion with a personal best of 12.89 seconds. In the 100m sprint finals, Owen Ansah (Hamburger SV) became the athlete of the day. With his time of 9.99 seconds, he became the first German ever running faster than ten seconds. Gina Lückenkemper (SCC Berlin) became German champion on the women’s side with 11.04 second. In the amazing race, three athletes finished on the second to fourth spot with the same time, with Alexandra Burghardt (LG Gendorf / Wacker Burghausen) and Lisa Marie Kwayie (Neuköllner SF) sealing their spots on the winner’s podium.

400 meters – Relays and Individual Races

An event, which was surprisingly attractive to me, were the Under 20 4×400 relay races. On the men and women side, the relays were held as timed race, i.e. the best time out of several heats became the German champion. There were four heats on the young ladies’ side, Neuköllner SF won the competition with a time of 3:45.79 minutes, ran in the last heat. Llith Belau, Anouk Krause-Jentsch, Katharina Krieger and Viktoria Kamml went for gold. On the men’s side, StG Team Saxony-Anhalt sealed their victory in the first heat already. The winning relay’s lineup was Leon-Joel Clair, Lucien Berger, Felix Weidenhaupt and Erik Brandecker.

Thereafter, the 400m racers determined their Sunday finalists in the semifinals. On the women’s side, Germany’s athlete with the most followers on social media, Alica Schmidt (SCC Berlin) pushed herself into the favorite role with a season’s best of 52.18 second. The Sunday focus on the one round race on the men’s side will be on Jean Paul Bredau (SC Potsdam). His 45.93 sec time was the best of the afternoon in Braunschweig.

 

Middle Distance Semifinal

The last heats on the racing tracks determined the contestants for the middle distance finals on Sunday. First of all, the 800m semifinals took place. Majtie Kolberg (LG Kreis Ahrweiler) was the fastest two lap runner on the women’s side (2:04.82 minutes), while Luis Oberbeck (LG Göttingen, 1:49.66 sec) was just two hundredth of a second faster than Karl Bebendorf (Dresdner SC). In contrast to the races before, where you always qualified by a combination of placement and best times, the 1500m racers only chose their qualifiers by the semifinal placements. The fastest woman on that distance was Nele Weßel (TV Waldstraße Wiesbaden, 4:23.19 sec), while Robert Farken (SC DHfK Leipzig, 3:49.20 sec) took the favorite role for the men’s finals.

 

 

German Athletics Nationals 2024 – Day 1 Track Events – Gallery

In the 2024 German Athletics Nationals  section of my sports gallery, there is a designated major size picture gallery with 774 pictures of this match at

• 2024-06-29 German Athletics Nationals Day 1 Track

 

German Athletics Nationals 2024 – Coverage Overview

Here is an overview of my coverage of the German Athletics Nationals:

• 2024-06-29 Day 1 – Track Events
• 2024-06-29 Day 1 – Field Events
• 2024-06-30 Day 2 – Track Events
• 2024-06-30 Day 2 – Field Events

 

Germany in Travel – 2024

Here are all my travel postings related to Germany published during 2024:

 

Germany-related Sports postings

Here are all Flyctory.com Sports postings related to Germany: