Pregnant, almost blind world champion emotional
“My big wish is that I can see my child”
Updated on April 13th, 2025 – 12:59 p.m.Reading time: 3 min.
Her pregnancy is accompanied by a great concern for Elena Semechin. Will she ever see her child? The almost blind athlete doesn’t want anything more.
The German para athlete Elena Semechin is pregnant. But the 31-year-old is afraid of never really seeing her child. The reason: Semechin has only two percent eyesight. She was suffering from Stargardt’s disease at the age of seven. It is an extremely rare innate disease that severely limits vision.
In conversation with the TV station RTL, Semechin now gave an insight into her emotional world. “Of course I very much hope that the two percent eyesight will remain as long as possible,” said the Kazakh native. “My big wish is that I can see my child with the two percent that are the world for me.”
Her last remaining eyesight is everything she has for Semechin. “And losing that is difficult to imagine. But I know that this could occur.” She has to prepare for that.
Already in January the multiple world and European champion had revealed her concerns about the completely loss of her eyesight with emotional words on Instagram (you can read more about this here). She had suspected that it had become worse again – which was then confirmed after tests by doctors.
“I am sad and scared. How long will it take until the last remaining light goes out?” Semechin wrote at the time. A question that nobody could answer her. She now told RTL that she was last checked again in a special clinic in Tübingen. The results of this investigation would still be.
Despite the uncertainty with her own eyesight, Semechin is happy about her pregnancy. “It is an absolute desired child,” she said now. In turn, she does not want to experience the child’s gender at birth. “I am a very curious and impatient person. I would like to know that immediately.” The clarity of whether she gets a boy or a girl should bring the next examination.
Semechin, who won gold over the 100 meter chest at the Paralympics in Tokyo three years ago and in Paris last summer, had already announced their pregnancy at the end of March. At that time she wrote on Instagram: “Today I would like to tell you something very personal and wonderful. It finally worked, I’m pregnant.”
She had published the text with a picture. Semechin can be seen in a colorful swimsuit on the edge of a swimming pool. She wears her hair bound to a high ponytail and looks down on her stomach with a gentle, loving smile, which she gently encompasses with both hands.
Semechin moved to Germany with her family at the age of eleven. She is married to her trainer Phillip Semechin. The two said the yes, two days before the athlete had to be operated on at the brain.
In October 2021 she announced that a malignant tumor in the left brain was diagnosed. Semechin had to undergo chemotherapy after the operation. She has now defeated the cancer. Semechin recently said to N-TV: “I know that the tumor will come back, the doctors told me that.” However, she only wanted to deal with it “when the time has come”.