Sports celebrities at the Munich Ispo

It’s a nice, pleasantly soft final gong that they have there at the Munich sporting goods fair Ispo, every evening at six. Dingdong then sounds from all the loudspeakers, followed by the information: “The trade fair is over for today. We wish you a safe journey home.” Sometimes, however, this comes at an inopportune time, for example on the first Ispo evening when a very well-known person speaks a few well-noticed words on the big stage in Hall B1. Colin Kaepernick is there, the superstar who mutated from athlete to fighter against racism and for the Black Lives Matter movement, once the quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers and now a symbolic figure of the civil rights movement. Even though he doesn’t speak a word of German and is in Germany for the first time that day, he knows what’s going on as soon as the bell goes: “Do we have to go out now?” he asks in English. Not at all, reassures the moderator, if we have such an outstanding figure in contemporary history here, let’s not let a disdainful gong stop us! So please: continue with the text!