BBC SPORT | Athletics | European Athletics | The good and bad of Munich



By Tom Fordyce BBC Sport Online in Munich

Organisers of the European Championships are already hailing Munich 2002 as an overwhelming success.

But there is always a touch of Orwell's 1984 about such official pronouncements.

Crowds are never just satisfactory - they're always double-plus good. And any cock-ups are always mysteriously absent from official press releases.

So what's it really been like in the Olympiastadion?

The good

The bad

Paula Radcliffe's 10,000m gold on Tuesday may have been won in front of just 10,000 fans, but by Thursday night the crowds were pouring in.

Organisers claimed a complete sell-out. And when you consider the stadium has a capacity of 63,000, that's pretty impressive.

I am completely overwhelmed with the spectator approval inside the stadium

Organising committee
vice president

Sure, there were empty seats visible to those watching on television. But only 48,500 seats are actually available to the public.

The remainder are either for athletes and VIPs or are being used for different purposes - like housing one of the giant scoreboards.

And the atmosphere finally came good too. The Commonwealth Games in Manchester underlined that championships need wins from home athletes to get them going, and so it was in Munich.

When Ingo Schultz powered down the home straight to take 400m gold, the noise from the German crowd was deafening.

Schultz triumphs

Wilfrid Spronk, vice-president of the organising committee, insisted that he has been delighted with the way things have gone.

"I am completely overwhelmed with the spectator approval inside the stadium," he said.

"Frankly, nobody expected such success. It puts me in a very optimistic mood for the next three days."

Official figures claim a total attendance of 154,000 over the first three days, with the weekend's action expected to boost that figure significantly.


The bad

Several athletes have been less than happy with the way they have been treated in Munich.

Russian decathlete Lev Lobodin put in a fantastic burst in the last 60m of the 1500m, knowing that a decent time could see him move into silver medal position.

On crossing the line he looked up at the scoreboard to see if he had done enough - only to find that his name had disappeared from the results.

For almost five minutes, to his mounting panic and anger, there was no sign of his time or points score.

Eventually the officials corrected their error - but not before Lobodin had almost torn himself apart with anxiety.

Paul Brizzel
A blunder left Brizzel re-running his 200m heat alone

Ireland's Paul Brizzel had an even rougher deal in his second round heat of the 200m on Thursday.

Drawn in lane eight, he exploded out of his blocks and nearly ran straight into an overhead camera which had failed to swing out of the way.

Having had to swerve around the camera, and with his rhythm utterly gone, Brizzel trailed in last.

On appeal he was allowed to run his heat again - but by himself, and having already run two heats that day, he failed to progress to Friday's semi-final.

Brizzel fails in solo re-run

And there was controversy too over the false starts in the men's 100m final on Wednesday.

Under championship rules, any athlete who jumps the gun should be given a false start, regardless of whether another competitor got out of his blocks even quicker.

If four athletes all record illegal reaction times, all four should be given a yellow warning, not just the worst offender.

That's the theory. In practice, the officials decided to penalise only one sprinter per false start.

Lucky Campbell

When Greece's Theodoridis jumped the gun twice, he was disqualified.

But Britain's Darren Campbell should also have gone. Theodoridis was awarded the first false start when Campbell too had gone off too fast - the difference being that the Greek was marginally quicker.

So when Campbell did get penalised for jumping the gun on the second false start, it was in reality his second offence.

Instead of being disqualified, he was allowed to run - and went on to take the bronze medal.


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