After 7,230 kilometers of training, handbike Paralympic champion Walter Ablinger is getting serious on April 24th. The man from the Innviertel contests his first race of the season at the cycle marathon around Lake Neusiedl. This has it all: 125 kilometers with 600 meters in altitude have to be mastered.
“For me, this race will be my first relaxed form test under competitive conditions,” says Ablinger, who even considered ending his career after a serious fall last year. “If I have seven lives like a cat, then six of them have now been used up,” he said after his crash with a truck trailer, which could have had fatal consequences with a bit of bad luck. After two training camps in Lanzarote and Mallorca, Ablinger is now back in racing mode. Before the start of the season, he made a detour to the lecture hall. At the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland) he completed the first of four modules of a sports management course. Incidentally, goalkeeper legend Jens Lehmann also went to school next to him. Ablinger contests the first international handbike race on May 1st as part of the cycling classic in Eschborn/Frankfurt.
Source: Nachrichten
