Max Lang and the Oscar-worthy European Champion Thriller

Max Lang is European champion in the clean and jerk.

He describes his grandiose success as “still somewhat surreal” – although it didn’t look like it at first.

The snatch went rather bad. Only in the third attempt, Max managed his inital load of 145 kg. “It was still going well in the warm-up, but it was just bullshit on stage.” But it is precisely in these moments that not letting your head hang down is the hallmark of a top athlete. He took advantage of the extended break before the clean and jerk and reboots his entire nervous system once again. “Now damage limitation had to be done, everything else didn’t matter. I had to make sure that the difference in the overall ranking between me and my Olympic spot didn’t get too big.”

No sooner said than done. Max started the clean and jerk with 175 kg. The lift was good – just like the two following ones with 180 and 185 kg. From this point a real competition thriller began, because three of his opponents, Bulgarian Andreev, Albanian Calja and Turk Ismayilov went into their attempts with higher loads. But all of them were not up to the pressure and blew it. And Max managed to get the title in the clean and jerk.“The former soccer player is European champion – crazy.”

Even though the pandemic and all the event cancellations during the last months caused him to lack the feeling of competition. “It was tough going into this competition after such a long time without competitive experience – the international stage is simply the final opponent now.”

Nevertheless, the preparation for the championship went very well. Max had reached his competition weight pretty early through professional consultation with his nutrition coach Miriam Krug. That allowed him to train close to competition and the loads he was able to achieve during training made him very satisfied.

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The conditions on site in Moscow were more to be criticized. The hygiene concept of the Russian organizer, which was drawn up in advance with 20 pages, was hardly implemented. Many nations simply ignored the signs telling them to wear a mask and to keep their distance.“I would have liked to see more control on the part of the organizers.”After all, the health of everyone is at stake and it is fortunate that professional sports can currently take place at all.

However, there is no time to celebrate and rest for Max. Because of the suboptimal result in the snatch Max lost 2 points to his closest competitor for the Olympics spot. So in just under 4 weeks, the next important highlight is coming up, a competition in Cali (Colombia), which he has his sights firmly set on. This gives him another opportunity to collect important points.

We are all ready for another bang from Max and keep our fingers crossed. We will keep you up to date on how the competition turns out.