In the decisive seconds in Bratislava, Johannes simply imagined he was at home in the kitchen.

The 15-year-old student can do his sport in both places: in his own four walls and in international competitions.

Johannes Kowalski does rope skipping.

That's jumping rope, but with club training and championships - and with a lot of acrobatics.

The boy from the Hochtaunus district in the Slovak capital recently took sixth place at the European Championships in his “absolutely favorite discipline”: the 30-second speed involves making as many jumps as possible in half a minute.

Florentine Fritzen

Correspondent in the Hochtaunus district

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The Friedrichsdorfer put himself mentally in his parents' kitchen in the Köppern district and managed 82. Only the right foot is counted, because in this discipline jumping is always done alternately with left and right.

The rope went under Johannes' sports shoes 164 times in 30 seconds - even though he got caught once.

In addition to the kitchen and competition halls, there is a third place where Johannes regularly jumps rope.

Only the right foot counts

He trains twice a week for two hours at the Homburg gymnastics community HTG.

He came there with his mother to demonstrate his art.

Michaela Kowalski heads the rope skipping department at the Bad Homburg club, where almost 50 children and young people jump rope.

Johannes, German runner-up in his age group, warms up a bit, stretches his arms and legs.

"Some elements of rope skipping put a lot of strain on the bands."

For his favorite discipline, he takes a short wire one from his eight skipping ropes.

And jumps.

The upper body is bent forward, the gaze is fixed on the ground, the dark blond hair bobbles over the forehead.

The legs rattle up and down like two hooks on a machine, faster than viewers can clearly perceive.

Almost at right angles, they shoot up to about waist height and down again.

The right shoelace glows neon yellow.

Because only this foot counts.

"That way the judges can see him better." Johannes is exhausted and is panting slightly.

The lungs are compressed in the crooked posture that he copied from the Chinese at the 2019 World Championships in Oslo.

That's why 30 seconds of speed is more strenuous than jumping upright for three minutes.

Before Bratislava, he not only did strength exercises, but also went jogging for endurance.

Johannes likes jumping for time "that you can battle yourself".

It's like driving through a tunnel.

When it comes to freestyle, too, he tries to “concentrate completely on one thing and ignore everything else”.

Paying attention to what he feels and hears.

In this way, his body and the rope tell him whether he is still in the right rhythm or needs to make adjustments somewhere.

For the European Championships he was one of a dozen German jumpers.

He spent the entire first week of vacation there.

For the freestyle discipline, he had come up with a sequence to music.

"Unfortunately, the rope got caught on my feet and flew backwards." Johannes shows a few acrobatic jumps, this time with a stronger, longer rope.

From the push-up, he jumps all the way up and "pulls the rope through," as he puts it.

World Cup in Colorado in sight

The same is true with handstands.

In the "pretzel combos" he loops the rope under his legs, in doubles, triples and quads it swings under his feet several times in a single jump.

Some jumps have English names derived from the inventors' initials, for example "AS" or "TJ".

Michaela Kowalski says: "If you ever invent one, it's a JK."

He learned many jumps from his 17-year-old sister Clara.

She is now a trainer.

Johannes, who will be in the ninth grade at the Philipp-Reis-School in Friedrichsdorf after the summer holidays, started as an elementary school student.

To this day he is the only boy in his age group in the club.

He didn't know that from football, for which he also trains twice a week as a goalkeeper at Teutonia Köppern.

"We're just boys."

During the penultimate week of the holiday he will train a few younger boys in rope skipping at a camp.

Perhaps, Michaela Kowalski hopes, the club will soon be able to send a boys' team to competitions.

She likes that the young sport is so uncomplicated - and that young people can get so far in it.

"That also helped many during the pandemic."

Next year is the World Championships in Colorado.

Johannes hopes to qualify.

In Oslo in 2019 there was a novice category to try out, this time he wants to take part as a regular participant.

It could be more difficult at the World Cup than at the European Championships in Bratislava, he says.

Because the Chinese are so good.

After all, he already has their speed technique.