“Now I have a new challenge”
After maternity break: world champion before comeback
May 5, 2026 – 11:30 a.mReading time: 3 minutes
Swimmer Elena Semechin began training again just seven weeks after the birth of her son. The Paralympics champion has already achieved everything. But she still has a big goal.
Elena Semechin is facing a special moment. For the first time since the birth of her son, the Paralympics champion is returning to the competition stage – and of all places in her hometown of Berlin.
Klaus Phillip has long been part of her everyday life. Whether in the gym, in the swimming pool or at the training camp: “He’s already there everywhere. It’s like jumping into cold water with us,” says Semechin. At just eight months old, her son has already experienced a lot. Now he will see his mother at a race for the first time.
The 32-year-old is making her comeback in the world series. On Friday she will start her gold course, the 100 meter breaststroke in the visually impaired class. Her son will watch with his father Phillip.
“He will be there briefly at the final,” says Semechin in the SID interview, “but I don’t want to torture him. It’s always loud and tropical in a swimming pool like this.” She leaves it open whether it will be enough to win straight away. “My goal first is to even get into my swimming suit,” she says with a laugh.
She hasn’t set a specific time. “It would of course be nice if I could swim the standard for the European Championships. That’s my goal this year.” She still has just under four months left until the European Championships in Türkiye. There should “definitely” be a medal there: “I think that’s also possible. That’s exactly one year after the birth.”
She doesn’t feel any pressure at the moment. She is “still developing. That’s why it’s so exciting to find out what stage my body is at right now. It will be like a new start on the way to LA, the big journey that now lies ahead of me.”
She really wants to compete at the Paralympics in Los Angeles in two years – then as a mother for the first time. “I don’t have to prove anything to myself anymore. But I now have a new challenge: to perform as a mom with a completely new life, with a completely new person at my side who also needs me 100 percent,” says Semechin, who adds: She has “already achieved all her goals.”
