Mike Powell swamped by very happy kids in Stuttgart (© c)
The World record holder for the men’s Long Jump, USA's Mike Powell paid to two day visit (23 / 24 July) to Stuttgart, Germany, which is the host city of this year’s IAAF World Athletics Final (22 / 23 September).
The IAAF Ambassador won the 1993 World Championship gold in Stuttgart, retaining the title he had so memorably taken in a World record of 8.95m two year's before in Tokyo, Japan, in a duel with Carl Lewis.
Powell’s aim as an ambassador for the IAAF World Athletics Final is not only to promote the sport of athletics, but to encourage young athletes to participate in athletics.
"I believe sport can teach you more than just winning or losing. It's increasing your self esteem, your fitness and your communication skills," said Powell while he was supervising a training session with children in Pliezhausen, Germany.
On Monday (22) Powell was welcomed by 150 children at the club LAC Pliezhausen. The training session started with a warm-up before Powell began visiting each of the five training stations. At each station the focus was on different skills and methods.
"I love kids and I enjoy training with them", said Powell who has three daughters (12, 3 and 2 year's old) and knows a lot about kids and their ambitions to run and move around. Despite heavy rain and a strong wind neither the kids nor Powell were thinking of stopping training. "That's athletics. You never know what the weather will be like."
"Everybody remembers when he or she has seen an elite athlete, especially when the athlete is a World record holder, World or Olympic champion. When I was a kid, I met Renaldo Nehemiah (110m Hurdles – 3 x World records 1979 / 1981) and that gave me the motivation to train hard and do my best to make my dreams reality.”
But the kids were impressed not only by the 44-year-old World record holder but also by Peter Rapp, German Indoor champion of 2004 and 2006, and Dietmar Haaf, 1991 World and 1990 and 1994 European Indoor Long Jump champion who were also visiting Pliezhausen.
"There is one thing I do at every training camp. I watch at least once the legendary duel between Mike (Powell) and Carl Lewis in Tokyo 1991,” commented Rapp during the training session.
"Mike is the World record holder and the one who beat the World record of Bob Beamon (8.90m). I was eight at that time, but I remember sitting in front of the TV and watching the fight live. Two years later I was then able to see Mike Powell in person at the World Championships in Stuttgart. That was impressive," said Haaf.
Haaf was also impressed by Powell’s post-professional career. Powell is working as a jumping coach for the UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) and trains world class athletes like Grace Upshaw (Long Jump/USA), Jackie Edwards (Long Jump/the Bahamas) and Brianna Glenn (Long Jump/USA) back home in Los Angeles.
On Tuesday (24), Powell carried out another kids training at the local club SVG Feuerbach, in a district of Stuttgart. About 100 kids joined the training session and were more than impressed by the World record holder. Prepared with pens and official posters of the World Athletics Final they all got their autographs of the World record holder, and Powell kindly took his time so to satisfy everybody.
Joining the small training groups Powell tried out some training methods himself, pole vaulting, hurdling, and of course long jumping. "My best in the Pole Vault is actually at 3.50 metres and I have to admit that I really like that discipline."
Afterwards he stayed to have a photo taken with each of the participants of the session. "That is also a reason why I want to stay in shape. Training with the kids and showing them how to do certain things is a great motivation for them,” confirmed Powell.
Why did he come all the way to Germany?
"That's easy to tell. I love athletics, and the sport needs to be better promoted - also by the main figures itself - the athletes as well as the former athletes."
Marisa Reich for the IAAF
