Neise about random sports choice
Skeleton gold because she wanted to miss school
02/13/2022, 09:35 am
This gold medal for the German team at the Olympic Games is surprising: Hannah Neise was not one of the favorites in skeleton. The 21-year-old surprises herself, she has never won the World Cup. The choice of her sport was also a coincidence.
In the night after her sensational run to the Olympic victory, Hannah Neise really let it rip. “I don’t go to bed until after six o’clock. I think that’s understandable. It felt really good to end the season,” said Germany’s first gold medalist in skeleton. The path to her triumph alone cost the 21-year-old so much nerves that it gives the medal an even greater shine.
Just three weeks before the start of the Winter Games in China, Neise had managed to qualify by finishing eighth in the World Cup in St. Moritz. The next morning she tested positive for the corona virus. “It was the end of my world. But I quickly learned to deal with it. That also brought me a lot for the Olympics,” said the woman from Sauerland. In order to stay reasonably fit, she “pumped her body full of vitamins”. “I drank celery juice every morning. I certainly won’t do that again.”
The vegetable agony has paid off. Not just for Neise, but for the entire German skeleton team. So far, the team has always been overshadowed by the tobogganists and bobsledders. They were the ones who won world championships but never really performed at the Olympics. Now, in Christopher Grotheer and Neise, they are both Olympic champions from Beijing and can look forward to a larger funding pot. “Only when we fly home, a few days have passed, then we will realize what we have just achieved here,” said head coach Christian Baude.
Came to skeleton by accident
Baude has big plans, especially with Neise. “If she wants something, she pushes it through. The goal is now the Olympics in four years, so we want to defend the title,” said the 39-year-old. You can now train the athletes even better thanks to the increased funding and want to confirm the performances in the World Cups.
The fact that the Sauerland in Neise has an Olympic champion at all has a lot to do with an English lesson about ten years ago. “I was in seventh grade and the school looked for talent. You had to drive 20 kilometers to Winterberg for that,” reported Neise. “Then I said that I would like to go because I didn’t have a signature for English and I wanted to avoid the unpleasant situation. So I pushed myself into it.”
A decade later there was a public viewing on Schützenplatz in her hometown of Schmallenberg. For example, “Skeleton Beef” was served for nine euros or “Hannah Fries” for four euros. The effort was worth it, Neise set a superior track record to win the Olympics ahead of Australia’s Jaclyn Narracott. After the four luge victories and the triumph of Grotheer, it was the sixth German gold in the Yanqing ice track.
Tips from mom
In order to deal with the pressure at just 21 years old, Neise relied on tips from her mother and relaxation techniques. “I tried to breathe out the nervousness, deep in and out, my mom gave me the tip,” said Neise. She also works with “relaxing audio scenes that bring me down”.
She came down excellently in Yanqing north of Beijing. Neise had already taken second place in the test races in Yanqing in October. As always, she followed her dress code for the big coup. Under the racing suit she wore compression stockings and a pink T-shirt. As a lucky charm, she brought a cuddly toy from her friend, a ski jumper, to the Winter Games.
Possibly Neise’s triumph was also the end of the German gold series. Because at the monobob premiere, the German pilots made a mistake, only Laura Nolte, third at halftime, is on course for a medal. But the woman from Winterberg is already 1.22 seconds behind the leading world champion Kaillie Humphries from the USA. You can’t do anything with the gold on your own.