Louisa Lippmann's change: traces in the sand

So far, excavating has not been one of their core competencies.

She rarely had to block, and certainly not to pass.

Louisa Lippmann specialized in attacking, converting, scoring.

As a diagonal attacker, the 27-year-old was one of the best indoor volleyball players in the world.

In Germany she was undisputed: Lippmann was named volleyball player of the year five times in a row, and she wore the national jersey 162 times.

Most of the time she was the best point collector.

Achim Dreis

sports editor.

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It wasn't enough for her anymore.

The "kick" was missing.

That's why the cool blonde with the hard smash is looking for the famous "new challenge".

It should be beach volleyball after she surprisingly declared her indoor career over three weeks ago.

Now she has to be able to do everything: smash anyway, but also accept, pass, block - and above all, get up again and again.

Because in beach volleyball both partners have to work hard and throw themselves in the sand for each other.

desire for more self-determination

It seems to be exactly what she hasn't found in team sports in the hall lately, even if she was quite successful in it.

Most recently, the Herford native won the European Challenge Cup with top Italian club Savine Del Bene Scandicci.

Last year she was Russian champion with Lok Kaliningrad.

She was also active at Shanghai Volleys.

"My desire for more self-determination and individuality begins now," she wrote on her Instagram page on Friday evening.

She loves volleyball, but "can't work indoors the way she would like."

So out into freedom, the adventure for two.

"For me, a new chapter begins with the change from volleyball to beach volleyball in Hamburg."

There, at the federal base of the German Volleyball Association (DVV), she will meet star trainer Jürgen Wagner, but also two of the other three national teams: Cinja Tillmann/Svenja Müller and Sandra Ittlinger/Isabel Schneider.

In 2020, Louisa Lippmann completed a taster course on the beach with Isabel Schneider at the German Beach Tour tournament.

Now it should be the holistic kick on the beach.

Already this Saturday she posted a photo of herself in the middle of a pile of moving boxes with the helpful hint: Hamburg.

But the Hanseatic city is only a stopover on the way to the big goal: and that means Paris.

The Olympic Games will be held there in 2024.

In the hall, Germany's best never reached the big goal because the teams around them just weren't strong enough.

Ninth and eleventh place at the World Championships in 2014 and 2018 were the greatest German successes of the Lippmann era.

As individual as your personal migration story may seem, it is not entirely new.

Margareta Kozuch also chose the path from the hall to the beach five years ago.

The 35-year-old was also Germany's best attacker, just a player generation earlier.

She was also voted Germany's volleyball player of the year five times in a row, and she also rattled off abroad from Italy to Russia to China, where she was able to play profitably as a diagonal attacker.

Kozuch even won the Champions League with Pomi Casalmaggiore.

Only with the national team did she always miss the Olympic Games.

She made it on the beach, but only after years of hard training.

First, the transfer player played in a team with Karla Borger, then she signed on as a net player with Laura Ludwig – and actually made it into the Olympic tournament in Tokyo with the Rio Olympic champion.

In the quarterfinals there came the end in 2021.

After that, the exhausted Kozuch explained that she now needed a "competition break".

And of course it is still going on.

So Laura Ludwig is looking for a new partner again.

And Louisa Lippmann, who describes competitive sport as her "drug", confessed in

: "Everyone wants to play with Laura".

However, Laura Ludwig only gave birth to her second child earlier this week.

Even the super fit super mum that she is now pauses at least until autumn.

After that, the 36-year-old wants to get back into training - of course with the clear goal of qualifying again for the 2024 Olympics.

She is still looking for a partner.

The only question is whether there is enough time for Louisa Lippmann to acquire all the basic techniques on the beach in order to meet the requirements of what has been the best defender in the world for a long time?

For Lippmann, the vague hope of being able to form a successful duo with Laura Ludwig is reason enough to reorganize her (sporting) life.