Laura Vargas Koch is best known as an extremely successful athlete. She won bronze at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, became runner-up in the 2013 World Championships and won many other medals at the European Championships and in the IJF series. The athlete, who has been doing judo since she was seven, is also known for her straightforward training in addition to high-performance sport. She studied mathematics, wrote her doctoral thesis and is now a professor of mathematics at the University of Bonn.
Despite this high level of stress in her everyday work, the 34-year-old is now taking on the challenge of taking on responsibility on the board of the DJB. She maintains a close and trusting collaboration with her former national coach and predecessor Michael Bazynski, who has now taken on the role of head of competitive sports. “I would like to give something back to judo, which has given me a lot and made it possible. Since I don’t see myself in the role of a trainer, this gives me a very good opportunity,” she says about her motivation for this position. “My job is to advise Michael on strategic issues and to represent competitive sport in the DJB to the outside world and to network well.”
Their goal is to optimize the conditions for the athletes in the DJB. “It is particularly important to me that everyone who has the necessary requirements can have access to competitive sports and that we can also advise our athletes with a clear conscience to pursue a competitive sports career. Of course, I also want to create the best possible training conditions for these athletes.”
At the moment there are a lot of conversations on the agenda for her so that she can get an overview. The presidium is like a supervisory board and in this sense controls the work of the board. “For me, this means above all that we can support, advise and bring in new perspectives on all important decisions from which everyone benefits.”
