Athletic Competition in Europe - Ingebrigtsen offers comfort: Farken's vehicle collides, leaving no chance for a medal
Robert Farken, a 26-year-old athlete from Leipzig, faced a devastating blow in the European Championship preliminaries. With a promising position, he tumbled at the beginning of the final round and finished in eleventh place. Only the top six runners from the preliminaries went on to the Olympic Stadium in Rome for the finals.
"I feel like I caused this myself," Farken shared on ZDF. "I've been so motivated for a long time. My fellow teammates from my training group have won three medals so far. That inspired me. I wanted to make the first move to catch up. Now it's frustrating."
During the final round, Farken found himself in the top 6. He tried to speed up, only to collide with the Dutch runner in front of him. Four competitors fell, stopping top favorite Jakob Ingebrigtsen for a brief moment. In the end, Ingebrigtsen emerged as the winner of the preliminary round.
Later, Farken received words of comfort and advice from superstar Ingebrigtsen. "He told me, 'You should have stayed calmer. You looked good.' I was too eager in that moment," the athlete from SC DHfK Leipzig explained. "Maybe I could have just waited."
Despite the setback, Farken is focusing on healing mentally for the Paris Olympics, which he has already qualified for. "That was the first thing I thought about at the finish line. I don't want this to happen in Paris. I want to progress through two rounds and make it to the final," he said.
Paris will be the second Olympic appearance for Farken. In 2016, the blond-haired athlete was there in Tokyo, but he was eliminated in the semi-finals of the 1500 meters. The previous season, Farken missed nearly the entire season due to an Achilles tendon injury.
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Farken expressed his disappointment on German TV channel ZDF, mentioning that his fellow teammates from Leipzig had already won three medals at the European Athletics Championships. Despite placing first in the preliminary round, Farken collided with a Dutch runner during the final round in Rome, causing a chain reaction that affected top favorite Jakob Ingebrigtsen. The European Championships will take place in Paris in the near future, with Farken already qualified and aiming for a better performance to avoid another semi-finals elimination, as happened in Tokyo 2016. The German Athletics Federation (DLV) announced that they will send several athletes to represent Germany at the upcoming European Athletics Championships, which will take place in Saxony, Germany, in 2026. The events will be broadcast on ZDF, showing athletes competing for medals in various disciplines, including the European Athletics Championships in Rome, Italy, and the upcoming championships in Paris. The German national team is currently preparing for the EM Championships in Paris, hoping to secure good results and bring more medals back to Germany.
