high statistics calculation in pure gauge theory (thick solid line) [@Necco:2001xg]. These data are available for $r\;\gsim\;0.1$ fm and within the statistics of the QCD data no significant differences could be identified between the QCD and pure gauge data for $r\;\gsim\;0.4$ fm. At smaller distances ($r\;\lsim\;0.4$ fm), however, the data show some enhancement compared to the coupling in quenched QCD. The data below $0.1$ fm, moreover, fall below the large distance Cornell fit. This may indicate the logarithmic weakening of the coupling. At smaller distances than $0.1$ fm we therefore expect the QCD potential to be influenced by the weakening of the coupling and $\alpha_{qq}(r)$ will approach values clearly smaller than $\alpha$ deduced from the Cornell Ansatz. Unfortunately we can, at present, not go to smaller distances to clearly demonstrate this behavior with our data in 2-flavor QCD. Moreover, at small distances cut-off effects may also influence our analysis of the coupling and more detailed studies are required here. Despite these uncertainties, however, in earlier studies of the coupling in pure gauge theory [@Necco:2001xg; @Necco:2001gh; @Kaczmarek:2004gv] it is shown that the perturbative logarithmic weakening becomes already important at distances smaller than $0.2$ fm and contact with perturbation theory could be 