Day 6 Preview: Heavyweights Take Centre Stage
As the European Championships Munich 2022 reach the halfway point, further world-class athletes start their quest for European glory. The curtain falls on track cycling at Messe München with two classy classics, while elsewhere the action resumes in athletics, beach volleyball and table tennis – name dropping guaranteed. Follow all events via our live blog.
© Maja Hitij/Getty Images
EYES ON THE PRIZE
Norway’s one-time wonderkid Jakob Ingebrigtsen will tackle stage one of his bid to do the distance running double-double when he races for gold in the men’s 5000m on day two of athletics at Olympiadstadion on Tuesday.
Ingebrigtsen arrived in Berlin four years ago for the 2018 European Athletics Championships as a promising 17-year-old and left as a new-born star of world athletics having front-run his way to the men’s 1500m and 5000m titles.
Four years on, Ingebrigtsen is no longer a teenager, and no longer unknown, having won the Olympic 1500m title in Tokyo 12 months ago and the world 5000m crown in Oregon just last month.
The spotlight will fall on another star of Tokyo 2020 when Italy’s Marcell Jacobs seeks to add a first European 100m title to the Olympic crown he took in such surprising fashion a year ago.
Athletics medals will be decided in six other events on Tuesday, including the women’s discus, which features Croatian great Sandra Perković going for an unprecedented sixth successive European title, and the decathlon, while the streets of downtown Munich will once again be crowded with fans as the men’s and women’s 35km race walks crown the new distance’s first-ever European champions.
Read the full preview here.
AS CLASSIC AS IT GETS
The last day of track cycling at the European Championships Munich 2022 is reserved for events that are as classic as they are spectacular: Madison and Keirin. Both events will be held for both genders at Messe München of Tuesday.
The Madison is an endurance relay event in which a two-men team swaps turns in the race swinging each other in the track with manual change-over. Keirin is an eight-lap race for sprinters in which the pack is paced up to 50km/h by a motorcycle.
Did you know that the Madison owes its name to the famous Madison Square Garden in New York City? More interesting facts and information on both events can be found here.
© Jan Brychta/ITTF
THE TEAM TO BEAT
As the men’s and women’s doubles round of 32 starts on Tuesday, the big names enter the competition. For world champions Kristian Karlsson (SWE) and Mattias Falck (SWE) the aim of the tournament is clear, having lost European championships finals in 2012 and 2018.
"Mattias and I want a European championships gold medal. We’ve got two silvers, it would’ve been nice with a gold too,” Karlsson said.
The pair, who claimed gold at the 2021 World Table Tennis Championships in Houston, United States, are ranked No. 2 in the world and top-seeded at the European Championships Munich 2022.
Facing Austria’s Alexander Chen (AUT) and David Serdaroglu (AUT) in their first match, the Swedes are comfortable with being the team to beat.
"We are world champions, so we have to accept that we are the favourites, we’ll handle that,” Karlsson said.
”We have been good in doubles in almost a decade now so we are used to people having respect for us and wanting to beat us.”
Check out the full table tennis preview here.
BACK IN BUSINESS
Kira Walkenhorst (GER) is ending a 23-month absence from international beach volleyball when she plays her first 2022 CEV EuroBeachVolley match on Tuesday.
The Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic champion will have the toughest of assignments when she steps out on centre court at Königsplatz in central Munich against defending women’s champions Nina Brunner and Tanja Hüberli (SUI).
Walkenhorst won Olympic gold alongside Laura Ludwig but is playing alongside Louise Lippmann in Munich.
The men’s teams also enter the mix on Tuesday, including the Beachvolley Vikings Anders Mol and Christian Sørum (NOR), who are looking to win a fifth consecutive European gold.
Read the full preview here.