As an Olympic champion from 2008, it would be a special highlight to also compete at the 2022 Winter Games in the same place.

What snow or ice discipline are you talented in?

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

  • Follow I follow

I wouldn't call it talent, but I did enjoy ice hockey when I tried it once with the Kölner Haie.

The ice skating course as a child paid off.

What is your most lasting memory of the summer games from back then?

The days after my Olympic victory, celebrating and exchanging ideas with my trainer and the many sports colleagues in the village.

As fencers we were lucky that we got there early and could still enjoy the games afterwards.

You referred to the Olympics as being in “your” city because you spent a lot of time there.

Is today's Beijing still "your" Beijing?

I went to school in Beijing for three months in 1999 and lived with a Chinese host family.

Since then I have been able to experience the city and its blatant leaps in development several times a year.

Unfortunately I haven't been there in the last few years, a lot has certainly changed.

What do you think of the idea of ​​holding the Winter Games there?

It's a snowless city in a country with no tradition of winter sports, with ski resorts that have had to be developed in areas where it doesn't snow.

As for the winter sports tradition, you are certainly right, but the other way around, it was the plan and has succeeded in creating a tremendous enthusiasm for winter sports in China.

More than 300 million Chinese have now actively come into contact with winter sports.

The infrastructure was expanded enormously as a result of the games.

That will give winter sports a real boost globally.

Incidentally, there is also a tradition that winter competitions are held in places with artificial snow, which I have only learned in recent years.

I had no idea how many competitions involved skiers, biathletes or ski jumpers on fake snow – and not just at the Biathlon Challenges at Schalke.

Now, despite Corona, the entire winter sports entourage from Europe and North America is traveling to Asia and entering a bubble there.

What does that have to do with the Olympic idea?

The Olympic idea itself means peaceful, fair coexistence in competition and international understanding.

For this, athletes from all over the world and different sports come together and this meeting is followed by the whole world.

This will also be able to take place despite the corona bubble, even if the security measures limit carelessness on site.

Unfortunately, there will be no encounters with “the country and its people”, except with the volunteers who operate in the bubble.

The corona bubble is inevitable and means safety for the people of China and for the athletes and coaches.

Of course that changes the games.

Athletes often go into a “tunnel” to achieve their peak performance on day x.

Can they also create them in a forced-generated “bubble”?

Focus on race day is critical to peak performance.

The seclusion of the "bubble" may help some people to concentrate better, while others will miss the spectators very much.

Above all, the many rules made it difficult to focus in advance: restricted training conditions, cancellations of competitions at short notice, extensive guidelines that have to be observed - all of this is a big challenge.

Nevertheless, the measures in these pandemic times are the only way that they can even take place.

How do you live as an athlete when you have to fear being locked in a quarantine hotel if you test (possibly falsely) positive and miss the most important competition of your career?

That is indeed one of the biggest concerns: missing the competition while sitting in quarantine.

The athletes have therefore been extremely careful all the time.

But some have also had World Cup races until recently.

And of course something can also happen on arrival.

With Corona we have this “invisible” enemy.

Dealing with that is difficult.