European Athletics is very saddened to hear that German pole vault great Tim Lobinger has died at the age of 50.
In a career that spanned over 20 years, he competed in 12 European indoor and outdoor championships, landing gold in Valencia in 1998 and Vienna in 2002.
He also picked up a European indoor bronze in Madrid in 2005 and was a three-time European outdoor medallist, winning silvers in Budapest in 1998 and Gothenburg in 2006 along with bronze in Munich in 2002. His last major championship was the 2011 European Indoor Championships, where he placed eighth at the age of 38.
Lobinger competed in four Olympic Games and became the first German pole vaulter to join the six-metre club outdoors when he cleared the height for the first time in 1997. In 2003, he won the world indoor title in Birmingham, along with world indoor bronze in Moscow in 2006.
Following his retirement from athletics, he worked as a fitness trainer with various football players and clubs. In 2017, he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukaemia, undergoing chemotherapy and making a good recovery before the cancer returned in 2022.
European Athletics would like to send its condolences and sympathies to his friends and family and the wider German athletics community.