The CHIO smells differently than usual - a cold autumn breeze blows through the Aachen Soers.

No optimism like usual in June, the Olympic season will end here for many in the Corona year 2021.

But not for Ingrid Klimke.

She's only really getting started now.

On the trip from Münster to Aachen, she has planned the rest of the season: horse shows every week until November, eventing and dressage, with the EM next week in Switzerland as the highlight.

Evi Simeoni

Sports editor.

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She has a lot of catching up to do because in June, July and half of August she was unable to do anything.

Most of the time she lay there, twilight.

A serious fall on May 30th, at an eventing tournament in Poland with her young mare Cascamara, had thrown her off course.

Her sixth Olympic start in Tokyo had become unattainable.

"Actually just a misunderstanding"

"It's a miracle I survived," she says now that the worst is over. On this Friday and Saturday, the 52-year-old from Münster, one of the most prominent personalities in equestrian sport, daughter of the legendary Reiner Klimke, will start in Aachen with the young mare Siena in eventing. She also takes part in general dressage tests. And she doesn’t resist a start on Saturday evening with a slap jump. Because she can do it again.

“Actually,” she says, “it was just a misunderstanding.” She and her young mare had almost finished the Baborowko cross-country ride. At the penultimate obstacle, a narrow jump with a hedge on top on a curved line, the cliff of the test, it happened. "Cascamara hesitated, is scared of herself." She didn't jump off immediately, but built in a little gallop, after which there was nothing to save. “It got stuck in the front. I fell first, and she didn't fall on me, but next to me and then rolled over me to get up. "

It is one of the most threatening situations ever in this sport: If a rider is run over by his horse, it can be fatal. Ingrid Klimke could barely breathe. As it turned out much later, she had broken her sternum. But what was much worse: The collarbone had split inwards and was pressing on the windpipe. "It felt like someone slowly but surely squeezed your air." In the moments when she could speak, she groaned pleadingly: "Broken inside." She also said that when she was in the hospital, while the formalities were laboriously dealt with and Manfred Giensch, the German team doctor, who was there by a stroke of luck, searched for infusion sets on his own initiative.

There's no such thing, he said, there must be painkillers around here somewhere.

He had turned the room upside down while Ingrid Klimke kept diving away from the pain.

However, the examinations only revealed a broken rib.

She struggled to convince Giensch that the injury had to be much more dramatic because she still had considerable difficulty breathing.

Giensch phoned the Münster University Hospital.

She was anesthetized with painkillers and sleeping pills and bedded in her horse truck, her daughter Greta looked after her, and her stable manager Carmen Thiemann and her sister-in-law Corinna Klimke were also there.

Behind the horses, so they drove home.

"Serious, extraordinary injury"

“In between I was awake, sometimes away and thought: I hope you can do it. I thought you mustn't die now. ”Especially because her daughter Greta was sitting next to her. “I had to get to the hospital, kind of. I've never had such a hardship for hours. ”In Münster, the recordings from Poland were re-analyzed by Professor Michael Raschke. "You said right away, that is not the rib, that is a serious, absolutely extraordinary injury."

She had an operation. After that, the arm was attached to the body, she had bruises all over the place and she could still hardly breathe or speak. She was anesthetized for six weeks. “You tried different pain relievers over and over again, and I said I can still feel it.” What helped: Flowers and wishes for wellbeing kept coming. “It looked like a flower shop in my room.” She had time to think and ask herself: am I really doing what I would like to do? "It can be over so quickly." The answer was yes.

“Today I realize that I have achieved my dream. I want to ride horses, train horses, go to tournaments, give seminars. It's my passion and my joy. ”Despite the danger this sport brings with it. She finds driving a car more dangerous. Even if at the moment she is not necessarily getting into the saddle of a wild, young horse that could suddenly make an unexpected movement. "Otherwise I'll be the first to step on it, but at the moment I'm holding back a bit," she says with a smile.

She passed the first endurance test: in mid-August she won the eventing in Arville in Belgium with Hale Bob, her star in the stable. “Bobby was sensational,” she says. “I felt like a passenger. He said she has to go back to her old life and I'm doing a really cool lap. ”With the gelding, who is seventeen years old, she will also contest the European Championships in Avenches next week. After Strzegom 2017 and Luhmühlen 2019, she could become individual European champion for the third time in a row - and for the third time with Hale Bob. Ingrid Klimke also has her top horse with her in Aachen, but only to keep it going during training. "At the EM," she says, "I want to tear something."