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Olympic champion Nina Christen fell into deep exhaustion after her huge success in Tokyo. Nothing worked for half a year. Now the thirst for action is back, and with it new goals.
For five years everything had been in the service of the Tokyo 2020 Mission. Even driving a car without thinking about balancing mind, soul and body would have been a waste of time. Nina Christen wanted it that way on her way from the games in Rio to those in Japan, which finally took place in summer 2021.
The rifle shooter wanted years of perfect approximation to the stable maximum performance on day X. This was the only way to win the Olympics. Everything worked. Then came the emptiness. For Christians, the woman with nerves of steel, with mental strength like hardly anyone, a simple daily routine was suddenly a great challenge.
And soon the elbows were blue
At the turn of the year, the 28-year-old felt that the energy was back, and with it the desire to perform, to do thousands upon thousands of repetitions in the shooting range, for another Olympic cycle.
But the body didn’t cooperate at first. After the first units in the lying position, the elbows were blue, the hand hurt, and all this after a quarter of the workload that was possible without any problems a year ago. In the meantime things are getting better physically, the body is getting used to the specific stresses again. The mental though, that’s another story.
You’re not the same every day
Christians have kept their personal mental books for a long time. In it she records her own findings or those that result from working with sports psychologist Jörg Wetzel. Much of what is in this book and what formed the mental strength of the Olympic champion still helps Christians now.
For example, the question she asks herself every morning and often during the day: “How do I have to deal with myself today?” The well-rehearsed routine is important, but also the realization that you are not the same every day, that you also change over time. For example after an Olympic victory and exhaustion.
High up is the motto
Nina Christen also felt that she had to change her life as a professional sports shooter a little. She is now working with the Dane Torben Grimmel, who is actually the trainer of a different performance group within Swiss Shooting. New impulses bring new stimuli, bring variety.
And then Christen realizes a dream. She used to stand with her brother for hours at the fence of the airfield and watched the hustle and bustle in fascination. At the beginning of the year she started training to become a helicopter pilot. What a perfect symbol for the fact that Christen is now back to full speed after flying high in Tokyo and then grounding.