Bad Aibling (dpa) – The seven-time Paralympic winner and current ARD expert Anna Schaffelhuber also considers Beijing to be the wrong organizer of the Paralympic Winter Games and also takes Germany to task with a view to another Olympic application.
“For me it is complete madness that the games are taking place in China, where human rights are not respected and it snows three days a year,” said the 29-year-old of the German Press Agency: “But you have to address that in Germany too grab your own nose.”
It was “relatively easy to say, I don’t want the games this way, I don’t want them there – but I don’t want to organize them myself either,” said the former monoskier: “If I criticize the award, then I have to say it too , then I’ll at least try to get the games where I’d like them to be. Or I’ll help shape them according to my ideas.”
In addition, it is “too easy to shift everything onto the athletes with boycott demands or the like. Instead, everyone should question themselves whether they have to buy all the equipment from China.” She would also like to get involved in a possible application. “Yes, any time,” said Schaffelhuber: “I would be immediately ready to lend a hand in any way. How, you would have to talk about it. But I would be the first to say yes.”
Her resignation in 2019 was also related to the upcoming games in China, she admitted. “There were other candidates, I really wanted to go there again,” she said. “But I knew Beijing was coming and I didn’t want to go there.”