Jörg Wenig for the IAAF
25 June 2001 - Bremen - Grit Breuer coloured her hair golden
– and she is back winning. With a season’s best for Germany of 50.49 seconds she
won the 400m in the European Cup in Bremen.
It was good that Breuer started in the Weserstadion, because before her race on Saturday afternoon you would not have had the feeling that this event was staged in Germany. But when Grit Breuer arrived on the track the home crowd got enthusiastic for the first time.
“I have to thank the people for their support – normally I would have run a lap of honour, but this is the European Cup. So I did not do it”, Grit Breuer said.
The 29-year-old was the happiest German athlete around on a day in Bremen which was a disaster for the German men. But for Breuer her European Cup result was much more than an ordinary win in a one lap race – it was a personal triumph.
Asked whether she would have thought about a win in the European Cup last autumn, the club runner of SC Magdeburg answered: “I don’t give up so soon. I have always believed in myself – if you don’t, you are lost”.
On 11th September, when her rivals on the track were making their final preparations for Sydney, Grit Breuer had surgery on her back. One of the discs of the back column had come out – an injury that threatened her career.
“In September and October I did not know how my future would look. I did not know if I would be able to come back and what sort of form I could reach. I guess there are very few people that manage to come back after such an injury”, Breuer said. Additionally doctors solved a knee problem during the operation on 11th September. “I probably got the back injury already during the 1999 season”, Grit Breuer said. It was the first time she had needed surgery in fifteen years of sport at the elite level.
Breuer, whose world junior 400m record has stood since 1991 (49.42), did not bother too much that she had to run in lane one in Bremen.
“Of course it is tight, but you have to think positive – at least I could see all the other runners in front of me. And in the end I ran my fastest time for two years.”
Still Breuer remains cautious about the future. “From race to race I get better and I am in quite a good form. And if you are running in the European Cup for your country there is this extra bit of motivation. If it had been ten degrees warmer, I would have been even faster – but this season I really had one aim only: to come back.”
She does not like talking about possible achievements in Edmonton. “A lot of people keep telling me, I run so well and it looks superb – and then they speak about the World Championships. But for me it is all about showing that I am still there. You have to take into account that all my rivals were in top form last September while I was in hospital. So I had to start from zero again.”
Nonetheless reaching the final will be her major goal: “But for a medal I would have to be able to run sub 50 seconds, because the opposition will be so strong.” Though there is of course a more likely possibility of winning a medal in Edmonton, since the German relay team should be strong again.
It was in January that Grit Breuer, who is still coached by Thomas Springstein and to whose training group belongs 800 m runner Ivonne Teichmann, put spikes on again for the first time. “Training in the winter I was already in quite a good shape, but it would have been too risky to run the tight bends indoors.”
Winning in Bremen was a bit easier than it seemed before because British athlete Katharine Merry was absent. “It would have been more fun if Katharine had been in the race, I would have had to fight more. But it was a very nice feeling to win here – it did not matter against whom I won.”
Grit Breuer’s main goal is for next year. Having won the European championships already in 1990 and 1998 she wants to get the gold medal again in Munich – in Bremen on Saturday she got flowers. But she did not throw them into the crowd. “I kept them for my mother. She came to watch my race.”