You’d have to have a heart of stone not to feel for Dirk Nowitzki. After 12 years of spending his summer holidays playing basketball for Germany in the hope of one day making it to the Olympics, the Dallas Mavericks forward led his country into the tournament when they got third place — and the last ticket to Beijing — in a qualifying tournament on Sunday in Athens. 

Nowitzki cried tears of joy after Germany beat Puerto Rico 96-82 in the match for third place after they had lost to Croatia on Saturday night. He  buried his face in a towel while walking off the court after scoring 32 points and cried and then sat in the locker-room and wept  some more as journalists watched and waited for the chance to talk to him. “I needed to be alone for a bit at first,” Nowitzki said later.

He may be one of the richest sportsmen ever in Germany, earning many millions of dollars each year. But his tears of happiness were a moving reminder that there is something larger at stake. Even if basketball isn’t a very big sport in Germany — far behind not only soccer but also ranking below motor racing, handball and even water polo on many sports pages — Nowitzki’s emotion-filled achievement was the big story on Monday. ”A dream has really come true,” Nowitzki said. “I still can’t believe it. It’s an incredible feeling because we’ve all waited so long for it. I’m so happy and so proud. I was really tired at the end and a bit emotional. I just came unglued.”

But Nowitzki and his teammates were all smiles again on Monday. They went to German Olympic headquarters to pick up some team uniforms for the Opening Ceremony but had a hard time finding suits that would fit. “I heard the shot putters were here before us and snatched away all the suits in our size,” Nowitzki said. “Now some of us are going to have to run around Beijing with a bare midriff.”

Germany has had one of the world’s top 10 basketball teams for years, in no small part due to Nowitzki. They won the bronze medal at the 2002 world championships in Indianapolis, second at the 2005 European championships and fourth in Europe in 2001. But they always came up tantalisingly short in the pre-Olympic years in the qualifying for Sydney and Athens. But Nowitzki never gave up dreaming about walking into an Olympic stadium for the Opening Ceremony, even after Germany failed once again to qualify in 2007. The tickets they collected on Sunday in Athens were their very last chance for Germany’s first Olympic qualification since 1992.

“I’ve been watching the Olympics on TV ever since I can remember,” Nowitzki said in a recent interview in Berlin after a tune-up match against Poland. “The Opening Ceremony, the Olympic flame, the whole thing just fascinates me.” With Nowitzki now bound for Beijing, the whole thing fascinates me even more. 

Pix from top: Nowitzki (R) tries to score against Puerto Rico’s Alex Falcon during their FIBA Olympic qualifying basketball game in Athens. And Nowitzki hugs Demond Greene next to Robert Garrett (2nd L). Photos by Yiorgos Karahalis.

“Go ahead - ask me anything you want,” said German swimmer Britta Steffen at the start of a recent interview in Berlin. I had spent the last two hours watching her swim further (and three times faster) than I had swum in the last two months and was planning to ask her, among other things, a few questions about the doping innuendos that hit her in mid 2006 right after she broke the world record in the 100 metres freestyle. But I didn’t expect Steffen, who is regularly tested and never suspected of any wrongdoing, to so openly tackle the issue.

“Really, go ahead and ask,” she said again. So I jumped right in without even any warmup and started asking about those who have doubts on her world record time at the European championships in Budapest (53.30) in 2006 that was nearly a full second faster than her previous best (and lowered Australia’s Libby Lenton’s record of 53.42). What she would say those find such steep improvements hard to believe. “I’d be sceptical too,” she said. “I can totally understand that. If it weren’t me, I’d also have doubts. But the coaches took the pressure off my shoulder by pointing out that a Libby Lenton and other world record holders had also made improvements of a full-second before getting their world records.”

Steffen was bullied a bit by the media in Australia ahead of the 2007 world championships even though Australia’s head coach Alan Thompson had defended her and the German women’s team . But she realises that the doping regime of Communist East Germany cast long shadows. “The problem for me that I had taken off a half year two years earlier and on top of that I’m a ‘German’ and from the ‘east’ and so everyone assumed the worst,” said Steffen, who nevertheless voluntarily provides samples of her blood and urine to be frozen for future testing when new methods might be available.

She also knows timing played a role. In the summer of 2006 doping scandals were in the headlines after the Tour de France was ravaged. The insinuations — there were never any allegations — over her world record pained her. ”Sure it hurt my feelings,” Steffen said. “It seemed so unfair.  There’s nothing you can do but live with the doubters. The people who know me and trust me know I’m clean.”

It seems a bit like a modern-day witchhunt — you’re assumed to be guilty of doping unless you can prove otherwise? If you swim fast, you’re guilty? If you’re not fast, you’re left alone. That’s why Steffen said she is glad to see the doping control officials people on a regular basis. She also struggles to find an answer to those who don’t want to believe her. “The only answer I have for the others is to confront them directly and say ‘Put yourself in my situation. What would you do? What would you say? How would you act?’ And the answer is always ‘Um, gee, I don’t really know. That’s a tough question.’”   

Pix from top: Britta celebrates her victory in the women’s 100m freestyle final during the European Aquatic Championships in Budapest in 2006 (photo by Laszlo Balogh). Britta in action at the World Aquatics Championship in Melbourne in 2007 (Wolfgang Rattay )