Eight times the Olympic Games: no woman has ever managed that. For Claudia Pechstein it is the next world record. There are 30 years between her first participation in the Olympics in 1992 in Albertville and her last one in Beijing in 2022. In addition, she has 41 German championship titles, 52 medals at European and World Championships, and nine Olympic medals shimmer over them. Numbers that are so impressive that they seem almost unattainable for subsequent German speed skating generations.
Claudia Pechstein – no “everybody’s darling” of German sports
But Claudia Pechstein’s train also has a damaged wagon, a dark chapter. In 2009, Pechstein was banned because of elevated blood values, without a positive test. “My world collapsed. I had lost everything,” she says in retrospect. The federal police officer explains the values with an inherited blood anomaly. Since then she has been fighting for her innocence and going to court. She was rehabilitated by the German Olympic Sports Confederation, but this time shapes her.
Claudia Pechstein is an athlete who always says what she thinks also offends, has not become “everybody’s darling” in German sports. “I’m an easy-going and funny person, but if you fool me, I can also get angry. That’s probably why I lost my reputation in the media,” says Pechstein.
The goosebump moment at the opening ceremony in Beijing
The train has moved on and has recently been carrying an upgraded wagon. At the opening ceremony in Beijing, Pechstein was allowed to carry the German flag. The icing on the cake on her career and a “total goose bumps moment” as she says herself.
She wants to celebrate her 50th birthday in the summer. Then the new Olympic cycle will begin and who knows, maybe the train will continue after all – except for the Olympic ice in 2026 in Italy and the ice oval of Baselga di Piné there.
Source: rbb