Well done, Wellbrock: What Florian Wellbrock has shown this year in the pool and in the open water is extraordinary. Shortly before the end of the year, the title at the short course world championships in Abu Dhabi including a world record is the crowning glory after the gold at the Olympics. "Enjoy your life all the time, you are dead longer than alive", the 24-year-old has tattooed on his torso. A Sido quote, also as a tribute to his sister who collapsed dead after a swimming competition at the age of thirteen. Wellbrock really tickles everything out of himself. The fact that he came second to Alexander Zverev in the Sportsman of the Year competition will certainly spur him on for next year.
He surfs blind better than most sighted people - now Ben Neumann has crowned his extraordinary talent with a World Championship medal. The 16-year-old from Garmisch-Partenkirchen won the bronze medal at the World Para-Surfing Championships at Pismo Beach in California. "An unforgettable experience," he told the Bild newspaper. The boy, who went blind as a seven-year-old due to a genetic defect, started the World Championships as a beginner. In Bavaria, Ben Neumann became known as the "blind surfer from the Eisbach wave" - he is one of the intrepid ones who dove into the artificial water at the English Garden in Munich. Garden in Munich there plunge into the artificially constructed wave. On Instagram his account has the name ben.no.limits - how fitting!
Our knees sometimes creak when we walk up the stairs normally - what kind of miracle mechanism must Karsten Neder have in his joints? The graphic designer from Weßling near Munich has now conquered the 291-meter-high Munich Olympic Tower backwards down the stairs. And not just once, but for 24 hours! Neder covered a total of 17,200 metres in altitude, which corresponds to 87,720 steps. The running coach now hopes that the Guinness Book of Records will take up its course. Even if it doesn't, we have great respect. This is also because Neder collected 8772 euros for children with cancer.
Aaron Opoku, we thank you! It was probably only the honest horror of the VfL Osnabrück player at the racist outbursts from the MSV Duisburg "fan" that led to the match being abandoned. Over all these years, clubs, players and referees in Germany have put up with far too much racism. But after the empathetic referee Nicolas Winter saw Opoku and his shock, there was finally an end to quietly accepted racism. "It was an important sign for every person who has ever been discriminated against not to continue the game," said Hamburg-born Opoku a few days after the game. The fact that the Osnabrück and Duisburg officials found clear words was just as pleasing. So was their sportsmanship: Both clubs want a replay, not a green table decision.
E.T., nonsense, Alex, must phone home.... For a long time, Alexander Schmid was seen as the unfulfilled promise of a huge skiing talent. The Allgäu native had to turn 27 before he made it to third place in the giant slalom in the World Cup classic in Alta Badia. The miracle cure: a phone call. Schmid called his older brother Manuel, who is also a ski racer but injured, before the race. The phone call worked wonders. "He said he was rooting for me." That's when he thought to himself, "I'll race for both of us." Alex, a tip: phoning home already helped E.T., just call more often.
Come to think of it, sportswriters. Your choice for Sports Personality of the Year is super, an icon of distinction. But please... Team of the Year will be the women of the track cycling foursome. We don't have to gender everything. But this would be the moment to choose the women's team of the year in the future. Who read the interview with the team elder Lisa Brennauer in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" about the Olympic victory in Tokyo, the team spirit and just the election of the 'team' of the year, found in any case a lot of female energy. "We can make nonsense and laugh, be funny. When we're on the bike we all function the same, no one goes crazy, everyone is focused." Sentences that sit - from our female of the year.
If the cycling federation is happy, the environment is happy: The mobility initiative of the EU Commission promises more commitment to cycling in the European Union than ever before. The bureaucratically titled "Efficient and Environmentally Friendly Mobility" is, according to cycling associations, the European Union's strongest commitment to cycling to date. A trans-European transport network or intelligent transport systems that offer better infrastructure for pedestrians and cyclists is the announcement in the paper. Please, dear EU, let it be as good as it sounds.
