08/08/2004: Exactly two years after his famous gold medal win at the same site, the European 400 m Champion, Ingo Schultz, pressed his hands into the cement.
Tribute was paid to Ingo Schultz during the Team Challenge athletics event for his magnificent run on the evening of 8.8.2002 in the Olympic Stadium. In 45.14 seconds the athlete, who is 2.01 m tall, won the first gold medal for Germany on the third day of the European Championships 2002 before 50,000 spectators. It was to remain the only medal in individual competitions.
For him personally, it is also the greatest success in his career. Ingo Schultz had only moved into the world's top ranks a year before and had won a silver medal in the World Championships in Edmonton. With the European Champion title, the Hamburg athlete became the first German European 400 m Champion for over 20 years and thus continued a great German tradition in athletics.
On 8.8.2004 he returned to the site of his greatest success. On the way to the Olympic Games the Team Challenge was a venue in which athletes could compete against top athletes from France and the US. The weather was much better than in August 2002 but Schultz' time was not as good. But that did not spoil the small ceremony at the exit of the marathon gate into the Olympic Stadium. The fans cheered their star as his success in 2002 was immortalized in the cement.