After the pentathlon scandal in Tokyo
Schleu continues after the “hardest day”.
01/19/2022, 4:23 p.m
At the Olympic Games, the modern pentathlete Annika Schleu produces images that go around the world. ugly pictures. The athlete is attacked, reported and threatened. Nevertheless, she wants to be there again at the next Olympic Games and correct the memory.
The modern pentathlete Annika Schleu wants to continue her active career in the show jumping course despite the Tokyo affair and also want to start again at the Olympic Games. “Originally I wanted to end my career after the games in Tokyo. The affair then caused a shock, I didn’t feel able to decide how to proceed at first,” said the 31-year-old of “Zeit”. . “It became clear to me relatively quickly that quitting wasn’t a solution. I had to keep going.”
With the scenes in Tokyo, which caused a stir and indignation around the world, she did not want to be remembered as an athlete. “I’m continuing to train to take part in the Olympic Games one last time, in 2024 in Paris,” announced Schleu.
The sling drawn horse Saint Boy had refused at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Trainer Kim Raisner had the crying Berliner with the words “Hit it right!” asked to use the equipment. The German Animal Welfare Association filed criminal charges against Schleu and Raisner after the incident. In the meantime, the public prosecutor’s office in Potsdam has dropped the case against the two on suspicion of animal cruelty.
Since then, she has dealt intensively with the dramatic incidents on the course, said Schleu, who wants to start a traineeship as a biology and sports teacher in February parallel to sports. “I made the wrong decisions. I had to deal with that first. The day in Tokyo was the hardest day of my sporting career, if not my life,” admitted the pentathlete, who was criticized, hostile and threatened after the affair: “There was all this social media hate, I was getting death threats. It was awful.”