Paralympics 2021: Our German medal winners

Triathlete Martin Schulz simulated the conditions in Tokyo in a heated tent at 36 degrees and 80 percent humidity. Shot putter Niko Kappel got up half an hour earlier every morning to get used to the time change at the Paralympics. At the beginning of the year, cyclist Martin Schindler privately rented a finca on Mallorca for ten weeks to train. Disabled sports have long since become an absolute high-performance sport.

DBS President Friedhelm Julius Beucher has registered a “global upgrade”. Full profit, material battles and numerous specialists in everything to do with athletes are now more the rule than the exception. The ambitious goalball players have their own psychologist and video analyst with them at the Paralympics in Tokyo. A total of eight doctors and 16 physios take care of the 134 athletes. “In the beginning we were happy when there was a physio at the world championships. A doctor was out of the question,” says prosthesis sprinter David Behre, who started in 2009: “Today we have a biomechanic with us.”

Interest in Paralympics is growing slowly

During the Paralympics in Tokyo, absolute top performances are achieved. And although the games have long been broadcast on television, public interest is not (yet) growing to the same extent as the professionalization of para-sport. According to a survey by the opinion research institute YouGov, only ten percent of Germans want to watch the competitions on TV or via stream, 21 percent want to at least get information. 60 percent said they were not interested in the Paralympics.

Of the stern presents the most successful German para-Olympians in Tokyo; the gallery of medal winners: inside. A total of 133 athletes and three guides represent the German colors at the competitions.