There is hardly an attribute that would be too great to describe Timo Boll’s importance in table tennis. His private life: a maximum contrast to this day
At some point she ends, this almost incredible journey that the young Timo from the Odenwald led around the world. All the farewells, bouquets and hymns that are tuned to him touch Timo Boll, of course. But somehow he is also looking forward to it when everything is really over and on Sunday, June 15th, at the age of 44, he will have ended the last game of his glamorous career.
Olympic Games, World Championships, his duels with the top players from China, where he himself is a superstar: Timo Boll’s career could fill books. But it characterizes him that he doesn’t want to talk about himself so much on the last meters of his professional. However, he did it in an interview with HR sports.
hessenschau.de: Timo Boll, what does everything hurry in a 44-year-old professional athlete in the morning?
Timo Boll: I am very lucky that my doctors hired me well. At the moment it is really good, almost better than in many phases of my career. This is a narrow ridge. Of course you always stay somewhere at the limit and sometimes you are over it. Then it was too much and you are thrown back and also punished for the hard work. Even after so many years, it is still difficult to assess your body. But I think I’ll go out of my career without a total damage. That was important to me too.
Document to say goodbye
Timo “Magic” Boll-Farewell to a table tennis legend
The whole documentary is available on June 16 (9 p.m.) on HR television and in the ARD Mediathek
Hessenschau.de: Why is the right time for the end of your career?
Timo Boll: I am just a sports fan and not only like to look at all kinds of sports, I also like to practice it. I couldn’t do that all the time. That’s why I’m looking forward to the day when I can do other sports again. So hopefully I pulled the ripcord in time, even if I could delay the career for a long time. That was always important to me and many other athletes said that: you shouldn’t miss the time because it is simply the greatest good.
hessenschau.de: For most, forced, the end would have ended much earlier. How did you manage to play at this level for so long?
Timo Boll: I always listened to my body, always trying to be just below the limits, not to hide myself. Always with regard to being able to do a long career. I’ve always had that in my head and my doctor also told me: you only have a certain mileage, like a car, for example. At some point the engine is broken. That’s why I always had to household. I was at the doctor almost every week, let myself be checked through, invested a lot of time, even for regeneration, sometimes treated myself to tournaments two or three times a day, just not to have any problems. I was always very professional.
Hessenschau.de: For you, fairness is also part of the image of a professional. Why is Fair Play so important to you?
Timo Boll: Fairness only came through self -knowledge. Of course, my parents’ house already brought me to be a decent person. As an ambitious, young player, you might have taken an edge ball with you that nobody saw, and it just didn’t feel so good. Yes, you won the game or even the tournament, but you always had in mind: there was one ball. It felt so wrong for me that I said at some point for myself, I don’t need that, it feels somehow shabby.
hessenschau.de: Did that pay off for you?
Timo Boll: Maybe that didn’t always come back at the beginning, but in the long run. As a result, I think I also preceded with a good example. It is important that the top players do this to establish this and to discredge it unfairly. I never mourned any game in which I may have lost the game or the point through fairness. In any case, I got a lot of sympathy with it and a clear conscience. Maybe that’s the most important thing.
hessenschau.de: At some tournaments they slept in the motorhome. The connection to your home in the Odenwald is well known. Where does this down -to -earthness come from?
Timo Boll: Sometimes I don’t see myself so down -to -earth. I also have a nice house and I don’t always live in a motorhome. I am very close to home, that’s right. It never pulled me like this into this glamor world. If I could cancel a gala, I did it. For me, the red carpet was actually always rather exhausting to run all the small talks. I mean, it’s nice to immerse yourself in such a world, but I always had to get out quickly. This normal to meet friends from the past and to babble in Hessian. It’s nice and it feels good and normal simply.
hessenschau.de: You have had a flawless career. However, they missed single gold at Olympics. Greases something like that on them?
Timo Boll: I felt more and more than I thought possible. And therefore yes, it might have been the icing on the cake for many outsiders. But I am absolutely d’Occord with it. I am happy about the many beautiful moments I had. A few sad people, where you were a little disappointed, they are just part of it. I think there is no sports career where everything went perfectly.
hessenschau.de: table tennis is a marginal sport. Did you sometimes want to be so talented in football when you see what your colleagues deserve there?
Timo Boll: Fortunately, I was brought up so that I don’t really get any envy. Of course, because I was always fine from the start and I made money very early. That’s why I always looked down that many are worse than me, including many athletes. Then when you are at the Olympics for the first time and see that most of them cannot live on sport or only live on it because they are at customs or still study or even have a job and are not true professionals, that showed me that table tennis players are doing damn well.
Hessenschau.de: Thomas Müller or Dirk Nowitzki still earn many times over in their sports.
Timo Boll: Of course I also got to know people from the Thomas Müller or Dirk Nowitzki category. They make a lot of money, but also have many restrictions on the other. They can no longer go into the city normally and sit down in a café. I also know that from China that it is very exhausting. That’s why I’m just happy that I have such a balanced balance. I was able to live great from my job, but I also have this normal life. I don’t want to exchange.
hessenschau.de: Your last Bundesliga season is a big show. In games that may otherwise come to 200 people, 5,000 or more were now sitting. They are accompanied and celebrated by speech choirs. How do you take that?
Timo Boll: On the one hand, of course, very grateful to feel this respect from the spectators. Sometimes I also think to myself: Oh, what did you get up again to do it so public. Because of course it’s also exhausting. I am not the guy who wants to be highlighted so much. And then there again. On the other hand, I just try to enjoy it.
The conversation conducted Christian Adolph
