With his height of 2.06 meters, Julius Thole is hard to miss.

And the friendly, young man likes to trace it back to his length when he is recognized by fellow students at Hamburg University.

The second World Cup in beach volleyball and part-time law student with a North German understatement often does not really want to admit that it could also be due to his sporting successes.

Achim Dreis

Sports editor.

  • Follow I follow

The center of his personal dual path has so far been the Rothenbaumchaussee in Hamburg. Here Thole studies at the Faculty of Law - and here, "200 meters up the street", as he puts it, he achieved his greatest success as a beach volleyball player alongside Clemens Wickler: In front of 13,000 enthusiastic spectators, Thole / Wickler won the 2019 World Cup. Silver. They had already caused a sensation with fourth place at the World Tour final at the same place a year earlier.

For him, studying was “not an additional burden, but a necessary compensation”, Thole told the magazine of Deutsche Sporthilfe a year later when he was shortlisted for the sports scholarship holder of the year.

But now Thole has given up one in order to be able to do the other in the best possible way.

At the age of just 24, Thole ended his career as a competitive athlete to concentrate on his law studies.

"I would like to set a new focus in my life", he justified his decision, which was not easy for him "after careful consideration".

Missing shot of madness 

It wasn't his body that made the decision, but his head. Even if he suffered a torn ligament in the Olympic season, Thole was able to play freely in Tokyo and at least reached the quarter-finals with Wickler, who was two years older than him. In order to be able to play at the Olympics, they had "also set up the network themselves on the outskirts of Tokyo", the two had previously announced after reaching their childhood dream.

Their team communication was always geared towards the goal of “Paris 2024”, if they were in their prime beach volleyball age. But in order to fully pull off the three years on the beach, Thole, who comes from a legal household, apparently lacks the dash of madness that it takes to be successful in a fringe sport as a competitive athlete in the long term. He felt "no longer the full devotion," wrote Thole on Instagram. On the other hand, he feels the desire to "deepen his law studies considerably and approach it with full commitment". Company law is his specialty.

“I hadn't even started studying at the age of 24,” said beach volleyball Olympic champion Julius Brink with a smile when asked whether he could have imagined giving up his beach life in favor of university education.

At the age of 30, Brink reached the peak of his career at the 2012 Olympics in London alongside Jonas Reckermann.

Today, as a television expert, he is one of the most profound connoisseurs of the scene.

Brink had always observed the development of his first name cousin with astonishment and respect: "Very professional, very mature, very free", the young North German had appeared from the start, "never like a typical twenty-year-old".

He had "an incredibly clear idea of ​​his goals".

In October 2019, Thole reported in the magazine of the University of Hamburg about his daily dual work life and explained that he was almost never at university between April and September and could only take one exam in the summer semester. In winter, on the other hand, he can spend 30 hours a week on studying, but combined with eleven training units. Now, two years later, he not only wants to head for the first state examination at full speed, but also to pursue the longing for “a more freely designed life”.

Wickler, who comes from Bavaria and was on holiday at Lake Starnberg when he found out about Thole's new plans almost 14 days ago, was initially upset, but wishes his buddy all the best: “We are now going different ways professionally, but the friendship is growing stay. ”He himself is not thinking of quitting and will now try to find his way to Paris at the side of Nils Ehlers. Sven Winter, whose long-time partner Alex Walkenhorst ended his career and who actually wanted to play with Ehlers, remains on the track.

Thole's early withdrawal from competitive sports not only represents a significant blow for the German volleyball association, but also set the partner domino in motion.

And the withdrawal also raises the question of how well training and top-class sport can be reconciled in Germany.

Thole has now set the course - and goes his own way, without competitive sport.