The 26-year-old’s body was found on Saturday by his mother-in-law, according to the Bild am Sonntag which said that he had been to training on Friday afternoon as normal but not shown up the following morning.
His trainer Dietmar Jarosch told the paper, “We said goodbye as normal. There was no sign of anything being wrong.” He said Harms had had a slight cold and some problems with his wisdom teeth.
Harms had called his wife Steffi, who works in Hanover as a physiotherapist, and they had chatted that evening.
But when he failed to call her on Saturday morning as was usual, she started to worry, and called his training team. When they told her he was already two hours late, she asked her mother to check at the flat, where Herms’ body was found.
A police spokesman told Spiegel Online, “There is nothing to indicate a third party being responsible, or suicide or a crime.”
Herms was German 800 metre champion from 2001 until 2006 and again from 2002 until 2007 and in 2004 reached the semi-finals at the Olympic Games.