By Stefan Tabeling, dpa
In the end, nothing worked. The German women's track cycling foursome fell apart completely, Franziska Brauße and Co. rolled 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 course for success. Emma Hinze made it through to the second round in the Keirin sprint, as did defending champion Lea Sophie Friedrich and Alessa Catriona Pröpster.
The foursome, on the other hand, were frustrated. It didn't go smoothly the whole time," complained national coach André Korff after Brauße, Lisa Klein, Lena Reißner and Mieke Kröger only managed seventh place in the 4000 metre team pursuit with a very weak time of 4:18.527 minutes.
Performance curve goes down
No comparison to their own world record two years ago in Tokyo (4:04.242), when Brauße, Klein and Kröger were part of the team. Back then, the foursome - led by Lisa Brennauer, who has since retired - was the talk of the town. Olympic champions, world champions, European champions - and to top it all off, they were honoured as Germany's team of the year at the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden.
Since then, however, the performance curve has gone downwards - with the low point in Glasgow. "It didn't go perfectly, you could see that. I already said in the box: We win together, we lose together. Today we rather lost," Brauße told dpa. The 22-year-old Reißner in particular, who had replaced Laura Süßemilch in the team, was unable to keep up with the pace. "Lena is a super young athlete who definitely has potential, also towards Paris. Today may not have been her day," explained Brauße.
"There are still some reserves"
This meant that the German team was merely a spectator in the finals. The national coach also found it difficult to analyse the causes. "It's not easy to replace Lisa Brennauer," 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 hold on to their goal of an Olympic medal. "We're still on the right track for next year," said Brauße. Korff emphasised: "The first two teams were relatively far away. But from third to seventh place, it was relatively close." The national coach does not see any changes in the team: "I assume that this is the way to the Olympics."
This means that both German fours are not ready to medal one year before Paris. The men's team also finished seventh the day before and had no chance against teams such as new world champions Denmark.
This means that the wait for a world championship medal continues after 21 years. There is not much left of the former success story in cycling - German men's teams have won five Olympic titles and 16 world championship titles in the past. But the women's team's dry spell should not last that long.
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