It is a cross with the football of the German national team. Team 1 defeated Uganda 9-0 in the final at the Special Olympics World Games to win a gold medal. But even before the jubilation about the victory and the many goals at the tournament on the Maifeld, on the site of the Olympic Stadium from 1936, faded away, it became clear that this result is not only a reason for joy, but also for great anger.
In contrast to the selection of the German Football Association by national coach Hansi Flick, who suffers from inexplicable weakness, the Special Olympics team of coach Michael Kürten was clearly underchallenged. It defeated Switzerland 25:0 in the semifinals – and complained that it was in the wrong performance class. “This was not a triumphant success,” commented delegation leader Tom Hauthal on the all too easy success of his kickers: “The concept of the Special Olympics does not provide for anything like that.”
“Mixed feelings”
Libero Vincent Grüneberg admitted “mixed feelings”. Differences in performance, as they would have shown in these games, contradict the Olympic idea. Coach Kürten even complained to the “Kicker”: “If that doesn’t change, if the tournament is only there to represent something and not for the sport itself, then we will no longer compete at Special Olympics.”
At least as much as the many goals speaks for the team’s efforts to be included in the strongest performance group of the tournament. But that failed because of the mathematics and the stubbornness of the Technical Delegate for the competition. The teams played against each other for three days to define their level. In Berlin, there was a cut between the sixth-placed Egyptians and Germany 1 – not a selection, but practically the company sports group of the Berlin workshops for people with disabilities, who are Berlin and German champions in the workshop competition.
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Efforts to swap places with the Egyptians or play at the top as the seventh team were unsuccessful. Hauthal complained that it was the first time he had experienced such a misjudgment in fourteen years of working in sport for people with intellectual disabilities. The Special Olympics is about everyone having a fair chance of success based on their ability. It was impossible to impose restraint on the German players, all Berliners, who played in front of family, friends and colleagues who had been preparing for the tournament for months.
Nevertheless, the Swiss delegation thanked them after the forty minutes with 25 goals. She recognized sportsmanship in the night-long efforts of the Germans to get the higher classification. The system is intended to prevent inferior athletes and teams from being humiliated by such results. In the top-performing class, South Africa defeated Aruba in the gold medal game on Saturday. Hauthal doubts that the Berliners would have reached the final in this class.
Contagious joy
Chancellor Olaf Scholz summed up the special spirit of the Special Olympics as follows when he attended the games on Friday and noticed a “very peaceful, very Olympic atmosphere”: “Participating is almost more important than winning.” happy games” will be remembered, stated Mary Davis, Chair of the Board of Special Olympics International.
The joy of the hosts was contagious, the games in Berlin and the previous host town concept, in which teams from all over the world were welcomed in more than two hundred communities in Germany, made for a more inclusive world. On Saturday, the rush of visitors was so great that access to the grandstands had to be temporarily closed at the exhibition center with many indoor sports. In total, the games had 330,000 paying spectators. They ended on Sunday evening with an event at the Brandenburg Gate.
Great joy: Germany’s Pascal Knaak after winning the final : Image: Getty
The Special Olympics did not end with the final day of the World Games, said Juliane Seifert, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior, which supported the event with 70 million euros, as did the state of Berlin. The event was a “double bang for inclusion” and would have set standards for other major events; at the European Football Championship next year, for example, there will be volunteer tandems with people with limited intellectual abilities.
Leo Heckel, open water swimmer and athletes’ spokesman, made it absolutely clear that he does not want to be satisfied with the two silver medals he won in Berlin. The man from Hamburg mentions freedom and inclusion in the same breath and demands: “It’s no use just talking about it. We have to do it.” It is particularly important to reach those who cannot walk, who are in a wheelchair, with sports offers: “so that they too can live healthily and do not die of obesity”.