BerlinSimon Schempp still wants, but his body doesn’t want anymore: Not surprisingly, the longstanding top biathlete has ended his sports career after 20 years. “For some time now I have felt that my body is no longer fully resilient, and unfortunately my irrepressible will could not change anything,” wrote the 32-year-old Uhinger on Instagram on Thursday. “In the end, I couldn’t be the biathlete I was for a long time, neither in competition nor in training. I cannot and will not ignore this signal any longer. “
So it is time to stop: “Of course that was the hardest decision of my career, but it feels good and just right.” This step is not entirely surprising. Because Schempp, who for years set the pace in the German team and not only as a season finisher, according to his teammate Erik Lesser, a man with “eggs made of steel”, failed this winter with his third attempt to return to the top.
“Dear Simon, thank you for the time together and all the best for your plans beyond life as an athlete. Everything else personally ”, wrote Olympic champion Arnd Peiffer on Facebook. The Norwegian Tarjei Bö wrote under Schempp’s posting: “All the way together since we were 18 years old: One of my best friends in the field, and here is a big applause for an amazing career.”
Schempp had missed qualifying for the World Cup team after a good season preparation. At his two World Cup starts in Oberhof at the beginning of January, the two-time Olympic runner-up was only 45th and 58th and was removed from the team again. “Simon has been one of the most important pillars for years, he is an absolute model athlete who has shaped the team in the long years of his biathlon career and has distinguished himself above all through a high level of diligence in training and his strong will. We would all have given Simon from the bottom of our hearts that he can find his way back to his old strength after his long injury, ”said Sport Director Bernd Eisenbichler.
Schempp became world champion in the mass start in 2017 and a year later missed the Olympic victory in the same discipline by just inches against the French Martin Fourcade. In addition to eight World Championship medals, the “Schemppinator” won two silver and one bronze medals at the Olympics.
Since his World Cup debut in Vancouver in 2009, he has been an integral part of the national team. But after a wheel fall in the summer of 2018, Schempp repeatedly had problems and never found his way back to his old form. This year, the twelve-time World Cup winner, who had repeatedly struggled with serious health problems during his career, missed a World Cup for the third time in a row. The Ruhpoldinger by choice now wants to concentrate on his professional training and is aiming for a university degree.
Thoughts of resignation had already arisen in the summer. “But I didn’t have the feeling that I was finished,” said Schempp before the start of the season. But now it is. “It was an incredibly intense, demanding, instructive, but above all a wonderful, successful journey. Thanks to you, dear biathlon, I was able to celebrate great successes that always stay in my head and, above all, in my heart! ”Wrote Schempp, who will keep his fingers crossed for his girlfriend Franziska Preuss.
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