The German athletics federation (DLV) has announced that Frank Fredericks (Namibia) will serve as a consultant for the men’s national sprint team. The 200m World Champion from Stuttgart in 1993, who has won four silver medals at the 100m and 200m at the Olympics (1992 and 1996), partly lives in Germany.
Jürgen Mallow, Germany’s national athletics coach, said that Fredericks was asked to especially help the German sprint relay team. Fredericks will already be present during a weekend training camp of the national sprinters this Saturday (24) and Sunday (25) in Dortmund. He will cooperate with national coaches Klaus Jakobs, Ronald Stein as well as Michael Corucle, who is the coach of Tobias Unger.
“It is a strategic goal that the men’s sprint relay will be able to achieve top placings in the finals of future Olympics and World Championships”, Jürgen Mallow said.
The last time a German men’s 4x100 m team reached an Olmypic final was in 1988. West Germany finished sixth in Seoul.
However, the Germans did reach the World Championships’ final in 2005 for the first time since Stuttgart 1993 (6th). But they had to be content with seventh place in Helsinki.
Jörg Wenig for the IAAF