Few athletes take part in the Olympic and Paralympics. Kathrin Marchand started twice at the Olympic Games and – after a stroke – also at the Paralympics in Paris. Now she has a new goal: the Paralympic Winter Games.
The technology on the narrow cross-country skis is currently the biggest challenge for Kathrin Marchand: “The most difficult thing is to drive downhill.“She comes up the mountain faster than down, and had already said her trainer, as she told on Instagram.
There on social media the 34-year-old shares her special way with her Followers And shows many ups and downs, for example from the semi-finals of the Sprint World Cup in Trondheim, where it fell shortly before the finish and missed the entry into the final. Nevertheless, she can look back on a successful first winter season in which she learned a lot, as she says.
Stroke turns Marchand’s life upside down
Her “first” sporty career begins at the age of 14 when Kathrin Marchand sits in a rowboat for the first time. In 2011 she became the U23 world champion in the four, taking part in the Olympic Games in London and Rio de Janeiro in the years. After your career end, professional success is not long in coming. She ends her medical studies, works as a doctor, including in the emergency room.
But her life changes abruptly when she realizes during an online spinning course 2021 how her left half of the body suddenly becomes deaf and sees her less and less. “Actually, I knew what was going on. As a doctor, you know that,” she explains, “but you just don’t believe it. […] And then after an hour I called the ambulance and said that someone has to come now – because I probably have a stroke. ”
The doctors confirm Marchand’s suspicion, she is just 30 years old at that time. Since then, her eyesight has been restricted, as is her coordination. The Cologne native also sees the stroke of fate as an opportunity. By chance she hears a contribution on the Paralympics on the radio. A short time later she sits again in the rowboat.
Tears of disappointment with the Paralympics
Marchand’s “second” career as a competitive athlete begins with a bronze medal. Only three days after it is clear that her restrictions for classification in para are sufficient, she jumps in for a sick athlete at the Para European Championships. With the mixed four, she rowed to third place.
Two years later, she actually started at the Paralympics in Paris. But instead of joy, the disappointment predominates in the end. When the German boat missed the bronze medal by only six hundredths, tears flow. It is uncertain whether there will be such a strong team for the Paralympics in four years. But Marchand’s career again takes an amazing turn.
Ski running training On asphalt
At the Paralympics in Paris, she accidentally meets Rainer Kiefer, who suggests her luck as a cross -country skier. In the German Disabled Sports Association, Kiefer is project manager of the “Excellence Cluster of Endurance”. This is intended to support Para athletes to be successful in both summer and winter sports, regardless of which area they come from. A challenge that Marchand wants to face.
Because a move is out of the question for the Cologne native, Marchand’s “third” career starts on Rollerski. She is doing her rounds on the asphalt around the Fühlinger See, where she usually sits in the boat. The sport is not completely foreign to her, even as a rower she completed ski training camps in winter. In between there are many years and a stroke: “Learning technology does not make it easier in old age. In addition, due to the stroke, I have a visual restriction that does not help me to drive down more safely.”
In the coming months, technology training is at the top of the list of priorities. Marchand has already fulfilled a first goal, because in her first winter sports season, she qualified for the World Cup and the World Cup – after just two months on skis in her first winter sports season. The big goal is certain for the coming season. She absolutely wants to qualify for the Paralympics. And there? “I think the classic sprint and the ten kilometers in the classic style could be. I would be cool to be there at the front.”