Athletics: In front of the shop window

The rain poncho, that would have been it, says Tobias Potye. “A highlight that I would have liked to have had.”

The eye-catching item of clothing has now escaped him, the high jumper from the LG Stadtwerke München, although he already had it in front of his nose, it was less than two weeks ago. A truck in front of the Munich Olympic Stadium, official clothing for the German athletes for the Olympic Games, and Potye, 26, was there. Now he is no longer. He just missed his first Olympic participation, which of course worries him more than the lost item of clothing.

Honestly, he had already guessed it when he was dressed, he had missed the unusually high standard of 2.33 meters. And that he would still make it via the world rankings, this chance was not exactly huge, “fifty-fifty, rather less”. It was almost as if he were looking at the Olympic collection through a shop window after the store had closed. Since the fifth and final round of nominations for the German Olympic Sports Confederation last weekend, he has been certain: Eight other jumpers were in front of him at the end of the day. Now Mateusz Przybylko will be the only German to take part in the high jump in Tokyo, not Potye, who was last fourth in the European Indoor Championships in Torun, the current German champion, who set the German best outdoor performance of this year with 2.27 meters in meaning. Potye could now comfort himself with the fact that there won’t even be spectators in Tokyo, not this unique communal experience in the Olympic Village. He noticed in himself that “the spirit” never really wanted to emerge. Nevertheless: Of course it would have remained a special competition, he emphasizes; one he really wanted to be a part of; one who has been his goal over the past few years and thus his justification for every effort and every torment. “In sport there are no guarantees,” he says now. And: “I’m not completely crumbled on the ground now.”

At the Sinner Meeting, he once managed to completely ignore the knee pain

Potye’s club colleagues Christina Hering and Katharina Trost have received their tickets for the 800-meter run, and Alexandra Burghardt (Wacker Burghausen) from Bavaria in the 100-meter sprint and 4 × 100-meter relay, as well as Tristan Schwandke (TV Hindelang) made it to Tokyo by hammer throw. Trost had met the norm late and somewhat surprisingly, on June 20 in Chorzow, Poland, when she almost pulverized her previous best time in 1: 58.68 minutes. Potye had his last chance in Leverkusen at the end of June. 2.24 meters. Fourth place. In the meantime he knows: Even a win with 2.30 meters, the height that he has been chasing in vain for so long, would not have been enough.

In 2017, the former U20 European champion was already busy questioning competitive sport for himself, injured too often and with too uncertain prospects. The fact that he came so close to the Olympics proves his persistence in principle right. The story of Tobias Potye doesn’t exist without that of his knee, his patellar tendon, which has been bothering him for years. At the Sinner Meeting, he managed to hide the pain, and he is working hard on it. “Almost out of nowhere” he came to this height, it felt light. It didn’t work out in Leverkusen. Potye has now started a new therapy that he hopes will not only get the pain out of the head, but actually out of the joint. He now has more time for it, that is the good thing.

A conclusion to the season? Actually “a strong performance”, Potye observes, almost astonished

In the short term, however, he has other plans. He made it off the waiting list for the Diamond meeting in Gateshead near London, next Tuesday, his first appearance of its kind. Now he has to find his way back into competition mode and deal with “a mountain of forms”.

Tobias Potye sounds confused when he is asked to sum up his season, he has not given it any thought yet. He thinks for a moment, then he sounds almost amazed: “Actually a strong performance,” he states, all in all. “2.27 meters is good”, even if no meeting organizer or sponsor is interested, just that he was not at the Olympics. “Then I’ll have to sell myself above good heights next year,” he concludes, “that was the plan anyway.” The home EM 2022 is imminent. And then?

Tobias Potye would be 29 until the next Olympic Games in Paris. Much more important than proclaiming this next big goal, says the Munich resident, would be the way to get there, the question of whether he will get rid of his pain, this “extra burden” that he has with carry yourself. It is not good to struggle with pain for so long. But under this condition – why not? In 2017 he decided that he had not yet shown everything, that he wanted to know how far he can get. “I still want to know,” he says.