German Female Athletes – Women in Gold

German female athletes are a tough crowd when it comes to balancing life and career: Here is more on four women at the top, one of which just used the peak of her career to step into the next chapter of her life.

There couldn’t be a better concluding career moment for freshly retired Biathlon star Denise Herrman-Wick when in December she was voted German Female Athlete of the Year 2023, an award handed out annually by a body of sport journalists ever since 1947. But how did she get there? Needless to say, most professional athletes start at a very early age, meaning that having reached their 30ies, most of them can already look back on long years or even decades in training and professional competition.

Olympiastadion in Berlin. Photo: Markus Spiske

Biathlon star tale

Herrmann-Wick is a sport soldier who started out early with the help of her father Lutz Herrmann, a professional handball player of the GDR first league. He kindled her early interest in winter sport and at eight, daughter Denise entered first cross-country skiing competitions. Four years on, she joined the Oberwiesenthal skiing high school and started training at WSC Erzgebirge.

The high point of her career as cross-country skier came with winning bronze at the Olympic games 2014 in Sochi, an achievement for which she also received the German Silver Laurel Leaf award by Joachim Gauck, who was federal president at the time. In 2016, she changed to biathlon and started training at Ruhpolding.

The German female athlete changed her last name to Herrmann-Wick in 2022, when she married the cross-country-skier Thomas Wick, with whom she now plans to start a family. She quickly became highly successful in her new chosen discipline and between 2017 and 2023 won two gold, six silver and one bronze Biathlon World Cup medals as well as nine German Championships titles. At the 2022 Beijing Olympics, she scored a surprise win in the women’s 15 kilometers individual, as well as winning bronze in relay.

The 2023 world cup win of the Biathlon star ended in a tearful goodbye – much sweetened by her newly achieved medals. Ten days before receiving the ‘German Athlete of the Year’ award in December, she had announced on social media to be pregnant – thus pursuing her declared next set of goals as straightforwardly as her skiing career.

Photo: Jacob Rise

Runner-up to watch

Meanwhile, the 2023/24 women’s Alpine Skiing FIS World Cup offered a welcome surprise just as the year concluded, when German female athlete Lena Dürr set new standards as up- and-comer in Lienz/Austria. The 32-year-old gained second in slalom – first went once more to the exceptional US athlete Mikaela Shiffrin, while Swiss athlete Michelle Gisin achieved third. “I am really pleased with the way this year has concluded”, Lena Dürr said in an interview with dpa, “it was a perfect ending.” An energetic ending it was indeed, which she will make use of in the new year. Her coach Andreas Puelacher is proud of how she fought her way from 5^th to 2nd position in Austria: “If all goes well, she simply belongs with the top 3.”

Lena Durr of Germany competes during the first run of an alpine ski, women’s World Cup slalom, in Levi, Finland, Saturday, Nov. 17, 2018. (Markku Ulander/Lehtikuva via AP)

It seems that private and professional lives for German female athletes are tightly entwined. Just like in the case of Denise Herrmann-Wick, Lena Dürr’s longtime partner is a colleague, namely the former ski racer Fritz Dopfer who won silver in the slalom world cup race of 2015. Her father Peter Dürr was a professional athlete, and so was her sister Katherine, who ended her career as professional ski racer in 2014.

Photo: Dylan Nolte

Swimmer’s magic

While Lena Dürr is aspiring to reach gold, other German female athletes have already made it: Swimmer Leonie Beck was awarded Germany’s “Athlete of the Month” in July and was nominated for the ‘Best of 2023’. She claimed the global open water 10 km title at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka, and thus qualified for the 2024 Olympics. Here is an account of what it took to reach the goal in Beck’s own words: “I tried to stay calm in the beginning and not to lose the pack, but also not to swim very fast. I was always somewhere in the top 20 and then the last lap I was fourth. I tried to catch Sharon (van Rouwendaal) and Chelsea and then I saw, ‘wow this is getting really hard.’ I was exhausted but I didn’t stop fighting, and I fought so much and didn’t stop, and at one point I caught them. The last 400 meters, I didn’t recognize I was passing them and I was just swimming and fighting to the end.” (www.stateofswimming.com)

Barcelona, Spain. 29th July, 2013. Leonie Antonia Beck of Germany looks dejected after the women’s 1500m Freestyle preliminaries of the swimming event of the 15th FINA Swimming World Championships at Palau Sant Jordi Arena in Barcelona, Spain, 29 July 2013. Foto: David Ebener/dpa/Alamy Live News

At Fukuoka, Beck also acquired a win over the half distance as well as a second as well as picking up the first automatic qualifying spot for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and the World Aquatics Open Water Fair Play Award for an act of sportsmanship during the World Cup series the year before. To her the 2023 three-times crowning moment was a wonderful motivator for the 2024 Olympics. “I am extremely happy to be world champion, it is something really special. To have qualified for the Olympics is all I wanted from this and anything that follows this moment will be a bonus. I will however continue giving 110 percent.” www.dsv.de

Youngest golden girl

Also en route for the Paris 2024 Olympics is German Female Athlete Darja Varfolomeev. Titled ‘Germany’s Golden Girl’, the then 16-year-old won five times gold in the 2023 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship in Valencia, collecting the world titles in clubs and ribbons the day after she earned gold in both the hoop and ball finals, as well as the all-around.

And with the discipline of Rhythmic Gymnastics, we have reached the possibly youngest career starters of all professional athletes: The now 17-year-old Darja Varfolomeev does not even remember when she started rhythmic gymnastics but was known to have been going to the gym already at the tender age of three. Again, this was a parent’s mission: In this case, her mother who had stopped rhythmic gymnastics wanted her daughter to continue the tradition.  This was only the start of a turbulent journey for the Russian born, which included dedicating countless hours to training, moving abroad to join a German training school as a child and living without her family for three years. Due to her German grandfather, she was able to acquire German citizenship. The immense efforts proved successful: She eventually became the youngest ever rhythmic gymnast to achieve a clean sweep at a world championships.

Valencia, Spain. 23rd Aug, 2023. Silver medalist Sofia Raffaeli (L) of Italy, gold medalist Darja Varfolomeev (C) of Germany and bronze medalist Fanni Pigniczki of Hungary pose for photos during the awarding ceremony for the Individual Hoop at the 40th FIG Rhythmic Gymnastics World Championships in Valencia, Spain, Aug. 23, 2023. Credit: Pablo Morano/Xinhua/Alamy Live News

The trainer for such a young professional is obviously one of the greatest receiver of thanks, in this case Yulia Raskina: “It is unbelievable winning five gold medals, especially the all-around, which is of course the most important one”, Varfolomeev stated, “a huge thanks to my coach who basically did all the work. It was 70 percent her and maybe 30 percent from me.” (www.olympics.com) Humble words for an overwhelming achievement indeed. And for any keen followers of the careers of top German female athletes, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, taking place from July 26th to 11th of August, will be a most interesting fortnight to watch.

Photo: Markus Spiske