Denise Herrmann lies in the snow. She’s breathing heavily. She gets up, takes her sticks and leaves. Wait. She goes as an Olympic champion. hugs, tears. Herrmann keeps walking, almost mechanically. When she sees Vanessa Voigt, she hugs her. They whisper something to themselves, the words: We showed it to everyone.
And yes, Denise Herrmann, 33 years old, born in the Erzgebirge, showed it to everyone, her critics and above all herself. She left the big favorites behind: Marte Olsbu Røiseland, Hanna Öberg, Dorothea Wierer and Gold over 15- Kilometer individual race won. Anais Chevalier-Bouchet wins silver, Røiseland bronze. Herrmann ran away from them from the first moment. When shooting, she was only briefly on the mat, tock, tock, tock, tock, tock, further on the range. Crawling up the hill, in choppy but strong steps. Bright veils hung in the mountains, the sun was setting.
Then slide down the hill, slightly flexing your left foot to keep yourself in the turn. Sometimes Marte Olsbu Røiseland was just ahead, she had dominated the season. But Denise Herrmann didn’t let that deter her. Step by step further. Glide, run, shoot. On this day she set the rhythm.
She would have liked to pretend to be him sooner. After Laura Dahlmeier, Herrmann was regarded as the great hope of biathlon. She never quite lived up to those expectations. Franziska Preuss was already passing her. Or could she? Because Denise Herrmann was always fit in big competitions, she was there when she had to be there, delivered when she had to deliver. Already as a cross-country skier, in 2014, she won bronze in Sochi. In the 2016/17 season she switched to biathlon.
“I am my own worst opponent”
Herrmann is considered self-critical. She says the same about herself. Before the Olympic Games she had resolved not to put so much pressure on herself. And on this evening in Zhangjiakou, she seems winged, as if she is guiding the course without ballast. Take off the gun, shoot, in a calm wind. keep walking
“I’m my own worst opponent,” says Herrmann after the race. She triumphed over herself. Wearing a hat and a thick jacket, she stands in front of the press tent, sometimes taking short breaks to think. She doesn’t allow herself to make mistakes. But the Corona situation changed something in her. The thought that every day could be her last competition. Again and again she had said to herself: “I’m the same person, even afterwards.” Even if she won’t win.
Her big goal: stay with yourself, be at peace with yourself. Get up every day, look in the mirror, tell yourself, “I’ve done everything.” Make the most of it. During the race, Herrmann uses mental strategies. “Biathlon is a lot of mental activity with these small discs, you’ve already experienced a lot,” says Herrmann. There is always something new added. It’s good if you know how to trick your mind. Think about basics, like tracking; hold the position before shooting.
In the mountains, which are high, at 1700 meters, Herrmann runs as if she had never had a problem with altitude. And this despite the fact that your body reacts strongly to height. She had prepared herself with hard intervals. She had practiced shooting at height, over and over again. Again and again feel the calm pulse – the moment when the body has to switch from a raging plus to a low one.
“I got a good kick in the face this year”
Did the experience help you? For Herrmann it is the third games. Yes, she thinks so. The Olympic Games have their own rules. A competition like any other? Yes and no. There are hundreds more things around, says Herrmann. But one thing was better this Monday, with the track lit by headlights: less wind. A competition with fair conditions. Of course, Herrmann also knows where her mistakes were after the race. She almost begins to list them. Then she falters, changes her mind. Maybe she should say: It was a perfect race.
Immediately after the race, her face was flushed and her makeup blurred. “I got a real kick in the face this year. But I knew I could do it,” says Denise Herrmann. The Olympic general rehearsal in Antholz had not worked. Regardless, Denise Herrmann shook it off.
The women’s team also supports each other in difficult situations. Vanessa Voigt, who finished fourth in the race, says: “It wasn’t always easy.” She was hit by the media criticism after the mixed relay. The question: Was she the right cast? On Monday she was able to put that behind her and show everyone: oh yes, that was her. She missed the bronze medal by just 1.3 seconds. In an athletics sprint, that would be a lot; over 15 kilometers in biathlon it’s a touch of nothing. In the last meters she only saw the medal in her mind’s eye, says Voigt. In the end it wasn’t quite enough. But at the finish she still saw a German flag. At that moment she knew: This is Denise.