Kristina Vogel: Before the accident, she was faced with a burnout

Kristina Vogel (34), formerly an extremely successful train cyclist, has been paraplegic since a serious training accident in 2018. In one she now talks about the fact that she was about to be a burnout before the accident – and how her view has changed since then.

Vogel tries to pay attention to mental health today, she explains. It was once very different in her sporting environment. “Back then it was: mental things, psychologist was not allowed,” says the 34-year-old today. She got things to hear like: “Don’t exist. Don’t have it. Be just strong. Be a man.” According to her, there was even an interview about her national coach, in which that “Kristina is our best man”.

“I grew up in a time when mental problems simply did not exist,” Vogel continues. She would have liked someone to help her at the time. The “world’s most world’s most successful railway sprinter” had become “mentally on the ground”. “I was short of burnout.” The pressure was huge: “At some point you believe that you can only be gold and everything else no longer counts.”

You can be ambitious in competitive sports, Vogel continues, “but in the end it is also cool if you are a little personal with yourself”. Everyone needs their own time to mourn.

“It would have been good for me if I might have gave myself a little more time to mourn during the accident. I had an accident that turned my life 180 degrees. I am no longer a competitive athlete, I also had other plans. It’s okay, if you say: ‘Watch the hour now, I give myself more and cry and cry because it is just sad.’ Sad, now let’s see how it can work. “

Due to the accident, Vogel knew “that it is important that you can get success physically and mentally healthy”. One does not exclude the other. For her, it was decided not to be able to continue competitive sports as she knew it. A conversation with her long -time partner and today’s husband, whom she married in July, brought a liberation for Vogel. “When I was there and said Bibbii, shortly before the first op: ‘Bibbii, I stop.’ It was as if someone had taken a stone from my shoulders.