50,000 crowd salutes Baumann's last race

Berlin, GermanyDieter Baumann the 38yearold 1992 Olympic champion and 1988 silver medallist at 5000m unexpectedly announced the end of his career last weekend.

Baumann competed in a 7.5 k road race in his home town Tübingen near Stuttgart, finishing fifth in 22:01 minutes. He was well behind the winner Laban Chege (Kenya/21:11), but that was not of any importance on that evening. An estimated 50,000 people celebrated their local hero and made it a great farewell for Germany’s only Olympic long distance champion on the track - in the marathon there was of course Waldemar Cierpinski, the Olympic Champion from 1976 and 1980.

It was the marathon that was supposed to be Dieter Baumann’s very last task. And as he had officially entered this year’s New York Marathon on 2nd November nobody did expect the sudden end of his career. It was a year ago when Dieter Baumann stated in an interview: “It would be a dream to run the Olympic marathon in Athens as the very last race of my career – without any expectations concerning the medals. That would be a great vision.” But already then Baumann also said: “I now have to think in small stages, from race to race.”

It was in April 2002 when Dieter Baumann’s first marathon experience ended after 36 k in Hamburg. Trailing well behind the leaders he saw no chance of finishing in an acceptable time and dropped out. This year’s New York Marathon was the main goal of his season, but after he dropped out of the 10,000 m final at the IAAF World Championships in Paris, Dieter Baumann realised in training that he would not make it.

“I tried to get back into proper training after Paris, but I failed. I could not get myself going and I realised that I would not be able to do the preparation for the marathon as planned. It was my aim to run a good race and have some impact at the front of the field in New York. Something like a 2:20 result would have been unacceptable for me. So I decided not to run New York and consequently decided not to start new preparations for another season as well”, Baumann said.

“It was a great last race after 18 great years”, said Baumann who has two children with his wife and coach Isabelle.