Volker Wagner

Volker Wagner (* 1949 ) is a German educator and athletics manager and trainer. The predominantly Kenyan long-distance runners he oversees celebrated significant international successes, especially in the 1990s. During that time, Wagner had a reputation as one of the most renowned representatives of his field. He made living and training opportunities available to promising talents in Detmold .

In 2014 he and his work were portrayed by director Daniel Andreas Sager in his documentary The Long Distance , which was first broadcast on November 2, 2015 as part of the series Das kleine Fernsehspiel on ZDF . A few weeks later, on November 27th of the same year, another, but shorter documentary by Sagers with the title Runner's High - Kenyan running talents in Europe followed on ZDFinfo .

Life

Work and private life

Wagner worked full-time as a primary or secondary school teacher for mathematics and sports. For a while he let this activity rest in favor of his managerial career; In 2015 he retired.

He is married to Natalya, who was born in Russia.

Career in sport

Wagner had met the Tanzanian long-distance runner Suleiman Nyambui during a 1500 meter run . At the time, he lacked a pacemaker , which is why Wagner stepped in. In 1987 they met again by chance and a friendship developed between them. Wagner suggested Nyambui travel to Germany and offered to look for lucrative road races for him here . In the same year Nyambui was the first African to win the renowned Berlin Marathon . In 1988 he defended his title and in 1989, Alfredo Shahanga, another protégé of Wagner's , was victorious . The German gradually became a sports manager and quickly made a name for himself in the scene. Soon he formed a first group of runners. While his focus was initially on Tanzanians, he later increasingly worked with Kenyans , because “they have a different mentality than the runners from Tanzania and are more reliable.” But he also concluded contracts with Kazakhs , Russians and Ukrainians .

At the beginning of the 1990s Wagner rented twelve wooden houses in a former holiday complex in the Diestelbruch district of Detmold ; later he bought some of them. In this relative isolation, he offered runners the opportunity to live and exercise. When selecting talents, he often relied on recommendations from local friends, but from time to time he also traveled to Kenya himself for sightings. Most of the athletes spent a few weeks or months at the camp; however, some lived in Detmold for longer periods of time. Wagner registered them for competitions and withheld 15 percent of the winning bonuses, entry and sponsorship money as commission - significantly less than other managers. In return, however, he also gave the athletes the cost of flights, insurance, entry fees, visas and the deposit for the entry of non-EU foreigners or, in exceptional cases, even took over the costs in full. Supervised over the years and he trained in Detmold, among other Tegla Loroupe , Benson Lokorwa , Boay Gurgo , Eliud Kiptanui , Jacob Ngunzu , Lornah Kiplagat , Berhane Adere , Agapius Masong , Rodgers Rop , Luke Kibet , Pamela Chepchumba , Joyce Chepchumba , Sammy Kirop Kitwara , Richard Ngolepus , Joseph Ngolepus and Samson Kosgei . Wagner's athletes were among the best in the world; they set over a dozen long distance world records, won various indoor and outdoor world championships over different distances and won numerous important international road marathons. In 1997 he made total sales of one million DM .

Wagner's business has been increasingly sluggish since around 2006. He was no longer able to win over the world's best athletes. The athletes he signed have meanwhile also competed in smaller city runs and hardly ever received any noteworthy prizes. In the 2011 financial year Wagner made a loss of 24,000 euros and in the meantime he even had to file for personal bankruptcy. In April 2014, he cited the fact that “other managers with larger sponsors and more financial resources appeared in the business” as one of the reasons for his declining success. He also noted: “The bureaucratic hurdles in Germany are now too high. More and more runners are going to Dutch managers, for example. ”In 2015, he considered withdrawing from the running business at the same time as his full-time retirement.

criticism

Due to his management approach and the associated business model, Wagner has repeatedly faced harsh criticism over the years. He was accused of exploiting the runners and letting them live in unworthy conditions; some called him a "slave owner". In addition, in May 1997, rumors surfaced that he was working with the Russian mafia. Wagner himself spoke of a character assassination campaign and saw the reason in the fact that he was a thorn in the side of professional managers with the success of his athletes - the local athletes competed for the bonuses.

At the same time, however, there were also numerous companions who defended Wagner. For example, as early as 1997, Christoph Kopp, the sports director of the Berlin Marathon at the time, remarked :

“There can be no talk of slave owners. Rather, Wagner is a sports maniac who does everything for his athletes. "

After accompanying Wagner for his film project over a longer period of time, director Daniel Sager also commented on the allegations in 2014. First he refuted the accusation that the athletes' huts in Detmold were shabby barracks. The former holiday bungalows are shabby, but clean. There is running water, electricity and, in addition to the shared rooms, there is also a living room and a communal kitchen. Sager came to the following conclusion:

“He's a good-hearted man who likes to talk about the past and who has likely made mistakes. Even though I have spent a lot of time with Volker, I still cannot assess him. "

However, he does not paint a generally positive picture of the coach. A film review summarizes:

“Sager describes how relationships of dependency arise from different hopes. There is pressure on both sides, because Wagner was once a big player as a puller, his protégés set world records. But today he lives mainly from his memories. Other managers who also sign groups of African runners have long been more successful than him. [...] But Wagner doesn't want to give up, he's stubborn. In desperation, he urges Eunice [Eunice Chelagat Lelay] to complete two marathons in a month. In the manner of a landlord, he urges them to do something that is not justifiable. For more than 90 minutes of film, the maker-type Wagner remains an ambivalent figure: sometimes he appears caring, sometimes merciless - but often also helpless. "

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Karl-Heinz Bergmann: "Langlauf-Manager Wagner sees himself defamed". On May 17, 1997 in the Berliner Zeitung . Retrieved from berliner-zeitung.de on February 10, 2017.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} "Shops in Diestelbruch". In: Der Spiegel , № 44/1998, October 26, 1998, pages 176–178. Retrieved from spiegel.de ( Spiegel Online ) on February 10, 2017.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Scholz: "Kenyan marathon runners - with hope at the start". In: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine on April 28, 2014. Retrieved from hna.de on February 10, 2017.
4. ↑ Jörg Wenig: "Africa in Detmold". On April 5, 2003 in Der Tagesspiegel . Retrieved from tagesspiegel.de on February 10, 2017.
5. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Blume: "Little Kenya in Diestelbruch". On November 6, 1999 in Die Welt . Retrieved from welt.de on February 10, 2017.
6. ↑ ^{a b c} René Martens: “Last exit Paderborn”. On November 2, 2015 in Die Zeit . Retrieved from zeit.de on February 10, 2017.
7. ↑ Moritz Tschermak: “It's going very well”. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin , № 40 / 2012. Retrieved from sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de on February 10, 2017.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d} Bianca Blei: "Kenyans at the marathon - 42.195 kilometers that lead out of poverty". On April 12, 2014 in Der Standard . Retrieved from derstandard.at on February 10, 2017.