© Sebastian Widmann / StMI
Munich, October 12, 2024 (stmi). This evening, Sports Minister Joachim Herrmann presented the Bavarian Sports Prize to important Bavarian athletes for their outstanding achievements and exemplary initiatives in the field of sports. It was the 23rd presentation of the sports prize, which this year was awarded in six categories, including the “Personal Prize of the Bavarian Prime Minister”.
Outstanding Bavarian sports career
The 28-year-old Bavarian police officer Ramona Hofmeister achieved a historic success in Winterberg on March 9, 2024 and became the first German to win all three FIS crystal balls in one season. After the overall victory and winning the crystal ball in the parallel giant slalom, Hofmeister fulfilled a dream and made history by winning the small crystal ball in the parallel slalom. She won five of the 13 races this season and was on the podium in three more. The exceptional athlete’s trophy collection: She has already won the overall World Cup four times, as well as Olympic bronze in 2018 and two World Cup medals.
Outstanding presentation of the sport
In recent years, Esther Sedlaczek has established herself in the field of sports journalism. From 2010, she moderated for Sky, among other things, the 2nd Bundesliga and the DFB Cup, the Bundesliga matchday preview “Mein Stadion” as well as golf and beach volleyball. In January 2021 she moved to public television and has hosted, among other things, “Sportschau” on ARD and, since 2022, “Blickpunkt Sport” on Bayerischer Rundfunk. After the much-praised moderation at the World Cup in Qatar, she and football expert Bastian Schweinsteiger were once again the focus of attention at the 2024 European Championships. She also demonstrated her great journalistic qualities in a new role: in the ARD documentary “Esther Sedlaczek – Germany. Football. “Summer fairy tale 2024?” she looked beyond the sporting horizon before the European Championships and cast a critical eye on the mood in German society and the phenomenon of football.
Sporting life’s work
The award in the “Sporting Lifetime Achievement” category goes to former national toboggan coach Norbert Loch, who ended his career in 2024 after 16 years as the most successful toboggan coach in the world. His protégés have won 122 medals at the Olympic Games, World Championships and European Championships – 24 of them his son Felix alone, 23 his current sports award laudator Natalie Geisenberger, 26 the still active toboggan duo Tobias Wendl/Tobias Arlt. Before his time as national coach, he looked after the Free State’s tobogganers as the Bavarian state coach for 17 years.
Outstanding young athletes
By winning the world championship title, the U17 national football team made sporting history. The final of the 2023 World Cup was a repeat of the 2023 U17 European Championship, in which Germany and France also met. The German team won again on penalties and became U17 world champions for the first time. This was the first time that a European U17 national team managed to win both the European Championship and the World Cup. The squad of the coach with Bavarian roots, Christian Wück, included the young Bavarian football talents Konstantin Heide, Maximilian Hennig, Finn Jeltsch, Robert Ramsak, Kurt Rüger and Max Schmitt.
Now especially price
The 24-year-old Denise Hutter came sixth in the saber at the 2023 World Championships. She has only been using saber, epee and foil for two and a half years, but is already a multiple Bavarian and German champion. Denise Hutter has been dependent on a wheelchair since December 2020. It happened in a very everyday situation: Denise Hutter just wants to go down the stairs at home. She fell so badly that her legs have been paralyzed ever since.
Prime Minister’s Personal Prize
Sepp Maier has played 706 competitive games. From the 1963/64 season he was the starting goalkeeper at FC Bayern, for whom he played for 17 years. He played 473 Bundesliga games, 442 of which were without interruption – in 13 seasons he didn’t miss a single game. Sepp Maier, now 80, was one of the best goalkeepers in the world and was nicknamed “The Cat of Anzing”. He won all major national and international titles. In recognition of his numerous contributions to the sporting region of Bavaria and on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the 1974 World Cup victory in Munich, in which he played a key role, Sepp Maier will be awarded the Bavarian Prime Minister’s Personal Prize.
Ambassadors of Bavarian sport
To honor the successful participants in the 2024 Olympic Games or Paralympics in Paris, the gold medal winners will receive the Bavarian Sports Prize:
Jessica von Bredow-Werndl is a multiple German champion, European champion, European and world team champion, and Olympic champion at Tokyo 2021 individually and with the German team. At the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, Jessica von Bredow-Werndl and her “miracle horse” Dalera again won a gold medal with the team and in the individual competition.
Taliso Engel has a congenital visual impairment. In 2018, at the age of 16, he won the bronze medal in the 100 meter breaststroke at the European Championships in Dublin, and in 2019 he won the gold medal in this discipline at the Para World Championships in London. On September 1, 2021, Engel won the 100 meter breaststroke in a world record time at the Paralympics in Tokyo. On September 5, 2024, in a Paralympic heat for men with visual impairment 13, he again set a world record with 1:01.84 minutes in the 100 meter breaststroke. In the final he won the gold medal.
Josia Topf is a German para-swimmer and competes for the Erlangen swimming club. Josia Topf had already successfully qualified for the 2021 Paralympics in Tokyo. In 2022 he won the silver medal in the 150 meter individual medley and the bronze medal in the 100 meter freestyle at the World Championships. 2024 is his year of success: He has now crowned the three silver medals at the European Championships with a gold, a silver and a bronze medal (150 meter medley, 50 meter backstroke, 50 meter freestyle) at the 2024 Paralympic Summer Games in Paris.
Oliver Zeidler is a German rower and former swimmer. As a multiple German champion, Zeidler ended his successful time as a swimmer in 2016. He is now a three-time world and two-time European singles champion, has won the World Cup several times and has been unbeaten at national level since 2019. He also wrote a piece of rowing history: he was the first German single rower to win the legendary Henley Royal Regatta three times. He is the first German to become world champion three times in a row. He completed this success in 2024 with the Olympic victory in Paris.
