Sonja Greinacher, basketball player at the Olympic base in Hanover, wants to fulfill her biggest sporting dream shortly before the end of her career: taking part in the games in Paris. To do this, she puts everything aside – and undertakes unusual preparation.
It’s the last chance, the 31-year-old isn’t kidding herself. “I won’t be able to do it physically in 2028,” Greinacher told NDR. Greinacher draws from this fact great motivation and the unconditional will to seize the late opportunity and make his biggest sporting dream come true: taking part in the Summer Olympics in Paris next year.
She has had this dream since she was seven years old. 24 long years. And for most of her career he was unattainable for one very simple reason: German women’s basketball was too bad, too far away from world-class level – and therefore from the Olympics.
“They are probably the most important games of my life.”
— National basketball player Sonja Greinacher
Now, in the late fall of her career, the 1.88 meter tall Greinacher, who can play as a forward or center, still has the opportunity. Of course that is not the case. She actually wanted to end her career in the German five-on-five national team in 2021 and concentrate more on the smaller “3×3” format (three-on-three), in which she became German champion in 2019.
Sixth place at the European Championships
The association criticized the Essen native “that the experienced players should still lead the team.” She stayed – and that set off a sensational chain of events. Greinacher, who now lives in Hanover and trains at the Olympic base there, has played her part. “We qualified for the European Championships. Then I wanted to play in the European Championships,” she says.
But it got even better. Things went so well at the European Championships in Slovenia and Israel this summer that the German basketball players secured a place in the Olympic qualifying tournament by finishing sixth. Ending his national team career was no longer an option.
Basketball players in February at the qualifying tournament in Brazil
From February 8th to 11th, Germany will be taking part in the Olympic women’s basketball tournament for the first time in Brazil. It’s a tough group: Serbia is a two-time European champion, Australia and Brazil each won the World Cup once. “They are probably the most important games of my life,” says the 31-year-old.
The dimension that the games have for an athlete like Greinacher is illustrated by Boris Ullrich, head of the Olympic base in Lower Saxony: “Devoting yourself to this thing, thousands of hours of training in order to even catch up to a world-class level.” Depending on the starting point, he estimates the number of hours at 5,000 to 8,000 to work your way up.
Double preparation, different Burden
“It’s really a long road,” says Greinacher. “There were also moments physically when I thought: ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it by then and if it’s all worth it in terms of work.'” And even if my knees and ankles hurt and so on “Wear is simply noticeable,” the question was quickly answered: Yes, it is worth the effort and hardship.
And so she will once again “put everything else aside” for the big dream. What’s unusual is that Greinacher, who started her career in her hometown of Essen and became Polish champion with Basket 90 Gdynia, doesn’t have a club team, meaning no regular training or league operations.
The preparation presents her with special challenges – especially since she has to get in shape twice: for the three-on-three and for the five-on-five. After never having the chance to play for the Olympics for many years, she now has twice the opportunity.
Training with the TKHBasketball players in Hannover
But also a double burden, as her trainer and long-time companion Robert Birkenhagen explains: “These are very different types of burden.” Greinacher is lucky that Sidney Parsons, the assistant coach of the national team, is also the head coach of the TKH basketball players in Hanover, so she can start training there in January.
So suddenly she has two irons in the fire. Where does she assess her chances of making it more realistically? More like five-on-five, says Greinacher, because there the number of teams that qualify is higher at twelve. There are three per four-way qualifying tournament.
The task: qualification for “3×3” and five-on-five
And how does she decide if it works out in both competitions? “We have pushed the question back; the task now is to qualify for both.” If that succeeds, “some people will have a voice”: the association, the coaches, but also the players.
And if it doesn’t work? “The disappointment would be very, very big. But life goes on even then.” You always have to “expect that it won’t work out in the end, but you also have to try everything.” It is precisely with this understanding that Greinacher tries to seize her last chance. A chance that she didn’t have for the longest time in her career.
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Sports club | 12/10/2023 | 10:50 p.m
