Meier will not wait for PérecMarita Koch's former coach sets up a sprint team
in Rostock and aims for Athens
Jörg Wenig
2 February 2001 - Although it seems unlikely that Marie-José Pérec will return to Rostock, Wolfgang Meier has a new goal. Some weeks ago the husband and former coach of Marita Koch, the 400m world record holder, announced that he had set up a sprint team in Rostock.
Meier already has a web page, carrying the meaningful address: www.meierteam-athen2004.com . "You have to be professional - there is no other way to success", Meier explained. His next statement was rather more controversial: "It is my goal", Meier said, "to have one white athlete in each of the women’s sprint finals in Athens: 100, 200 and 400 m."
So far, there is little to indicate that Wolfgang Meier is well on the way to reaching his goals. His web page contains very limited information, and the three athletes in his team are unknown in international athletics: 16-year-old Evelyn Hübner, said to have run 60 m in 7,67 seconds indoors in December, Anne Hansen and Nevelys Rodriguez (23), a 400m hurdler from Cuba. But on the other hand Meier has just started work and hopes that his team will expand. Two more 14-year-old youngsters from Rostock are supposed to join after the indoor season.
"I remember when people told me in 1975 that there were no sprinters in Rostock. I proved that this was wrong - and I think I can do it again", the 58-year-old Wolfgang Meier said. "There is enough talent here and in other regions in Germany - it is just frustrating to see that everything has been destroyed in Rostock during the last decade."
Meier believes that Germany has no lack of talented sprinters. Instead he makes quite a controversial statement: "It is more a problem that the right coaches are missing. So it does not help when big clubs spend big money just in athletes."
While Germany has not produced a good male sprinter for many years, the women’s situation is much better. But even times run by the German quarter-milers Grit Breuer or Anja Rücker can not impress Meier. "You can forget about the times achieved by German 400m runners", Meier said.
He is also convinced that a lot of athletes are not willing to train hard enough. "I know this from former times. When young athletes or coaches watched our training they said afterwards: No, we don’t want to do this - it is too hard."
For many years Wolfgang Meier, who has lived through five bypasses since 1997 and cycles once a week to keep fit, did not play a part in German athletics. Instead he worked together with Marita Koch in their sports shops in Rostock and the surrounding area. "But I can really no longer sell sports shoes to youngsters. They don’t know me any more and find it strange that the old man advises them." So training young athletes means a new challenge for Wolfgang Meier, who also works as a fitness coach for the youth-teams of Hansa Rostock (1st league in German football).
"Of course it would have been great if I had had success with Marie-José in Sydney. Because then other athletes would probably have asked me to become their coach. But on the other hand it is not that important for me, since I was very successful in former years."
Concerning Marie-José Pérec's sudden departure from Sydney Wolfgang Meier said: "I had already persuaded her to stay twice before. But I did not manage it a third time." In mid-January he could not say whether Pérec would return to Rostock or not: "Quite a few things simply went wrong. But I had no trouble with Pérec because of this. I think what happened in Sydney is more a problem between Marie-José and her French federation. I had sensible talks with Marie-José, although there is one sore point." According to Meier, Pérec did not yet pay him an expense allowance. "But I do not want to make a big story of that because we had agreed that there should be some success first."
Meier is convinced that Pérec would have been successful if she had stayed in Sydney. "I think she was able to run about 48,87 seconds." Cathy Freeman won the 400 in 49,11. But for Wolfgang Meier times in such regions are not first class.
Contacted again later in January regarding Pérec’s possible return, Meier, who refused to give any interviews for months last summer, abruptly said: "For me the matter is closed." But asked if that definitely means that Pérec will not return to Rostock he said: "I don’t know - Annick Averinos (Pérec's French agent) could be able to answer this question." But as Averinos stopped working with Pérec two weeks ago, really no-one knows what the double Olympic champion from 1996 intends to do.
In an interview in Rostock last May Marie-José Pérec was enthusiastic about Meier’s training: "Now I believe that it is possible to run the world record without doping", Pérec said, regretting that she did not come earlier to Rostock.
If you enter Meier’s web page you will be greeted in three languages: German, English and Spanish - there is no "Bienvenue" as yet.