Berlin – Whether tennis front woman Angelique Kerber, dressage queen Isabell Werth or model athlete Patrick Hausding: The mixed doubles at the Olympic opening ceremony in Tokyo should not only feel as the leader of the German team, but also as a champion for equality – and deeply honored .
For the first time in history, there will be a flag bearer for Germany at the ceremony on July 23. “It’s a great thing and totally contemporary. It is exactly the right strong symbol for equality with a large media presence, ”said Tobias Hauke to the sid. The two-time Olympic hockey champion is also on the list of five candidates that the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) announced on Monday.
Patrick Hausding thinks the message is important
“For the first time, as many women as men start in Tokyo. The athletes have campaigned and fought for it for a long time. The flag bearer duo is a great opportunity to make this success visible, ”said DOSB CEO Veronika Rücker.
In addition to the three-time Grand Slam winner Kerber and the six-time Olympic champion Werth, beach volleyball Olympic champion Laura Ludwig, gymnast Elisabeth Seitz and the rower Annekatrin Thiele, who was decorated with gold in Rio, are nominated for the athletes. In addition to the diver Hausding and Hauke, the men can choose from the “Hero de Janeiro” Andreas Toba (artistic gymnastics), table tennis ace Dimitrij Ovtcharov and rower Richard Schmidt, who won gold with an eighth in London in 2012.
Record European champion Hausding thinks the message is important. “It is a good sign for equality,” he told the Munich Merkur / tz. Ludwig spontaneously started a survey on Instagram: “Do you think I can do that?” Seitz called her nomination “crazy” and “really unbelievable”, Toba wrote: “Wow! It would be the greatest honor for me. ”And Franzisca Hauke, who is also playing for a hockey medal in Tokyo, campaigned for her brother:“ Be sure to cast your vote! ”
The doubles chosen by the athletes and the fans by 50 percent will be announced on the day before the opening ceremony (July 22, 7 a.m. CEST) in Tokyo. Like many other nations, the DOSB follows the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that a woman and a man each carry the flag together.
Not all athletes will be in Tokyo for the opening ceremony
The strict corona rules had an impact on the preselection. In addition, not all athletes will be in Tokyo at the opening ceremony. You can vote until July 18th at teamdeutschland.de or at tokio.sportschau.de. In 2016 in Rio, table tennis idol Timo Boll carried the German flag into the stadium.
Boll was already the twelfth man to lead an all-German Olympic team at the summer games. Since the premiere in 1964, there have only been three women in Tokyo, the water diver Ingrid Engel-Krämer, and two other athletes led teams from the GDR.
Because this blatant imbalance had been the rule internationally for over a century, the IOC encouraged the delegations at the beginning of March 2020 to make use of the dual leadership that was permitted for the first time. President Thomas Bach also promised a nearly balanced field with 48.8 percent women.
The German team clearly missed this goal with 258 men and only 176 women. The main reason, however, is that only the men’s teams qualified in football, handball or basketball.
CEO Rücker emphasized that the “necessary equal treatment” was also pointed out with the #showusequal campaign. In doing so, the DOSB is calling on all German media to “report equally on men and women” in sport.