German sprint hurdles recordholder Florian Schwarthoff will be a member of the team of DLV President Clemens Prokop who was re-elected last weekend at German Federation's Congress.
Schwarthoff will deal with any matters concerning athletes. With the help of Schwarthoff the DLV hopes to improve its relationship with the German elite athletes.
At the end of the Congress Prokop gave a surprisingly optimistic comment: “We will meet again in October 2009 to celebrate the triumphs of our athletes at the World Championships in Berlin.”
Due to the championships in August the election period has been lengthened by half a year. That is to make sure that there will be no changes in the presidential team a few months before Berlin 2009.
At the Congress Prokop was re-elected as the President of the Deutsche Leichtathletik-Verband (DLV). The 48 year-old had taken over from Prof. Dr. Helmut Digel four years ago. Now Prokop goes into his second term as president. 137 of 189 delegates voted for Clemens Prokop. But there was no other candidate.
Long time Vice-President Theo Rous had ruled out another term already some time ago. In honour of his achievements Rous was named Honorary President of the DLV. Helmut Digel had been named Honorary President as well four years ago. After the disappointing performances at the World Championships in 2003 and the Olympics in 2004 Rüdiger Nickel, who was responsible for elite athletes and in a Vice President position as well, had resigned after Athens. Prof. Eike Emrich was elected as Nickel’s successor.