Moment of shock after EM silver: Mihambo collapses and causes great concern

First Malaika Mihambo goes on the lap of honor with the German flag at the European Athletics Championships, also gives an interview - and then suddenly needs medical help.

Moment of shock after EM silver: Mihambo collapses and causes great concern

First Malaika Mihambo goes on the lap of honor with the German flag at the European Athletics Championships, also gives an interview - and then suddenly needs medical help. The circuit of the long jumper collapses dramatically, only after midnight does the DLV give the all-clear.

It's 12:41 am when the good news pops up on the screen. An "Update on Malaika Mihambo", sent by the German Athletics Association. The long jumper put in a great performance on day four of the European Championships in Munich, even as her impressive streak comes to an end after four straight victories in major finals. Unbeaten at European Championships, World Championships and Olympic Games since 2018, she won silver this time with 7.03 meters because Ivana Vuleta from Serbia jumped three centimeters further. However, the history of the sport has long receded into the background in the face of what happened next.

At first everything seems to be in order. Mihambo completes all six jumps, shows a world-class series, and after her 7-meter jump also sails on 6.95 and 6.99 meters. Then she gives a first interview at the stadium microphone, saying she "definitely won silver and didn't lose gold." Then she goes on the lap of honor wrapped in black, red and gold, before television is the first to ask for an interview. Apparently it happens. The DLV writes of "a circulatory collapse", in the mixed zone, where the athletes answer questions after their competitions, it is said that Mihambo first complained of shortness of breath and then had to be treated medically.

Shortly after this collapse, the association doctors come along, then their coach Uli Knapp. It takes quite a while before the 28-year-old seems to be recovering and can leave the stadium. The first all-clear, that "she's feeling better again" in the DLV's announcement, is the provisional end of an evening in the Olympic Stadium, which is dramaturgically geared towards Mihambo, but whose planning doesn't work out for several reasons.

First, a storm delayed the start of the evening session. Shortly before the planned start at 8.05 p.m. it starts to pour. The high jumpers start their competition almost an hour late and spend the waiting time sitting on the ground in the catacombs, as one of the finalists later reveals in the shuttle bus to the subway. The delay in turn means that the competition, contrary to plan, does not end well before the last attempts of the long jumpers, but parallel to it. In fact, looking at the schedule, it was clear that all other competitions should be completed in order to give Mihambo full attention

The warm-up for the long jumpers also begins a little later than would have been appropriate given the strange start time of 8:58 p.m. Mihambo is already cheered loudly when she only makes a few runs or tests whether she arrives at the board with the right foot and distance from the inrun mark. Until shortly before the qualification, she left open whether it would be enough for the European Championship because a Covid 19 illness had forced a training break in the immediate preparation. "Despite my corona infection, I was able to contest such a good competition," says Mihambo after her last jump and before the health problems: "It was a really good competition, but also a tough one. I had to fight."

Part of the story of the evening is the own expectation with which Mihambo tackles her title defense. "Eugene's level is still there," she said after qualifying, at the World Cup in the USA she became world champion for the second time after 2019 with 7.12 meters. The infection afterwards did not go unmentioned: "In the first jump I still had weak legs and after Corona I had to get used to going full throttle again."

In qualifying, two jumps were enough for the 28-year-old, this time there were six, all with maximum exertion. Vuleta had achieved her later winning distance of 7.06 meters in the first attempt, which Mihambo then chased after. Ultimately in vain and, despite the silver, visibly disappointed at first. Understandable in view of the following sentence that she said before the European Championships: "It's not important that I jump the seven meters, but that I win."

Because the competitions in Munich, which are embedded in the European Championships, are "closer to her heart" than the higher-level World Championships in Eugene, but an international championship "at home is always something special". She will also have felt the expectations from the outside. The organizers had specifically removed a few banners in the stands to free up more seats. With the short-term communicated discount code "Mihambo" it was possible to get two tickets for the evening of the long jump decision for the price of one.

The fact that the planning with Mihambo as the beaming winner on this nevertheless impressively atmospheric evening didn't work out is of course also due to the fact that Ivana Vuleta also showed a great competition and presented a distance right at the beginning that lasted to the end for first place. Of course, this public expectation also plays into what Mihambo once summed up very aptly in a single sentence: "I've already achieved everything." EM, WM, Olympia, she has won everything, plus a whole series of German championship titles.

Of course, that raises hopes that things could just go on like this forever, especially in their own country and with a correspondingly inclined audience behind them. Mihambo is presented as the last of the finalists, it is the loudest moment of the evening until Konstanze Klosterhalfen runs so sensationally and convincingly to the European Championship title over 5000 meters. Although Mihambo knows like no other how to free himself from external influences, mentally the challenge in Munich was probably much greater than in her first big title in 2018 in Berlin.

The fact that second place feels like a defeat at least at times is also an expression of the extra class that the 28-year-old has been demonstrating at the highlights of the year since then. The 7.03 meters in front of Munich are the fourth highlight after the two World Cup successes in 2019 (7.31 meters) and 2022 (7.12) and the Olympic victory in 2021 (7.00), in which Mihambo jumps at least 7 meters. The fact that another athlete, Vuleta, herself a two-time indoor world champion and now two-time European champion, after years of dominance has had a better day in no way diminishes Mihambo's outstanding consistency.

Especially since the priority is that the 28-year-old recovers as quickly and completely as possible from the massive circulatory problems. Short-term, because she is expected at the award ceremony at the Olympiasee this Friday. She was happy, Mihambo said to the spectators immediately after her competition, "to celebrate second place with you". In the long term, however, also in order to draw the right conclusions from the root cause analysis. Because it is still completely unclear what the reasons for the collapse are. In view of the corona infection that has only just been overcome, nobody should be interested in taking another risk.