Please do it again, Katharina Hennig! At the start of the new winter season, the cross-country skier can look forward to the title of DSV Skier of the Year 2022. In the vote of athletes from all disciplines of the German Ski Federation, the 26-year-old gold medal winner from Beijing received the most votes. Of course, this was in recognition of her successes in the previous season - but it can go on like this!
In the meantime, she runs through Disneyland with her children instead of over the tartan track. But if all goes fairly, Lashinda Demus will soon be an Olympic champion as a sports pensioner at the age of 39. Ten years after the Olympic Games in London, the Russian Natalja Antjuch is to be stripped of her victory in the 400-meter hurdles final because of doping. Demus would then retrospectively become the gold winner. That would only be fair!
These handball players are so strong, they would probably even become world champions in their overalls: Due to a luggage snafu, the handball players of SC Magdeburg had to compete in the Club World Championship in Saudi Arabia in borrowed jerseys, although not in work clothes. It did not bother the Magdeburg team. As in the previous year, they reached the final and won against Barcelona. Coach Bennet Wiegert said: "We are incredibly proud. Defending a title is usually more difficult than perhaps surprisingly winning it - and then also twice against Barcelona, perhaps one of the strongest teams in Europe."
It's a shame Diego Maradona won't live to see it: his SSC Napoli is playing as successfully as it did in the days of the late soccer legend from Argentina. Napoli has now won eleven times in a row in Serie A - something the club has only managed in its ninety-year history in 1986, when Maradona played there. "This Napoli is irresistible," wrote the Gazzetta dello Sport. Diego would certainly be proud.
He is a 2.23 meter tall hope for the future: In the NBA basketball league, everyone is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the French super talent Victor Wembanyama. The 18-year-old will play in Europe for one more year, after which he is expected to enter the NBA draft. Wembanyama is already considered a unique combination of size, agility, athleticism and high scoring ability. LeBron James, who himself has been mixing it up in the NBA for years, couldn't help but marvel at Wembanyama's two preseason games in October. He is a generational talent, an "alien.
There has been a historical hit: Stefanie von Berge is the new European boxing champion. She clearly won the final in the welterweight category (up to 66 kilos) by judges' votes. It is the first time that a German could win the European title in Olympic women's boxing. "This was an extremely important victory for German women's boxing towards the Olympics. We have invested a lot, it has paid off," said Martin Volke, performance sports officer of the German Boxing Federation (DBV).
Others get a gold watch as a farewell gift, but he gets an avenue: Four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel, who is about to end his career, can look forward to a "Vettel Grove" at the racetrack in Austin, USA. Because of Vettel's commitment to the environment, the operators there want to plant a tree for each of his 296 races, and the first 20 have now been planted. That improves the racer's eco-balance a bit.
