Cycling: Kristina Vogel: Paraplegia after a training crash

Olympic track bike champion Kristina Vogel is paraplegic after her severe training crash on 26 June. Her spinal cord was severed at the seventh thoracic vertebra, Vogel explained in an interview with Spiegel, in which she gave deep insights into her emotional world.

Vogel thus broke the news ban on her person after the momentous training crash.

The accident happened on 26 June at the Cottbus racing stadium. There Vogel trained on a concrete track coated with synthetic resin and collided with a Dutch junior driver. While Vogel was immediately transported to the Trauma Hospital Berlin-Marzahn and operated on several times, the Dutchman did not suffer any serious injuries.

After the operations, a news ban was imposed on Germany’s most successful female track cyclist. “I didn’t want anyone to see me hurt like that,” Vogel continued.

By cutting through the spinal cord at the seventh thoracic vertebra, Vogel is said to be paralyzed from the chest down. The two-time Olympic champion is thus dependent on a wheelchair. “I have to understand my paralysis first,” said Vogel, who will remain in hospital until at least the end of the year.

Afterwards she would like to return to her home together with her partner Michael Seidenbecher. However, this would have to be modified. “We need a solution for the stairs. I want to depend on help as little as possible,” Vogel stated.

However, the professional future is still unclear. The 27-year-old is civil servant by her employment with the Federal Police. Together with her employer, she will discuss exactly what she can achieve with her paralysis.

Vogel has no concrete plans for a possible entry into Paralympic sports yet. “I don’t know if I ever want to go back to competitive sports and, if so, to what discipline. This is not a question I am currently asking,” she said.

Many athletes were already deeply saddened by the news on the day of the accident. Miriam Welte, with whom Vogel won Olympic gold in the London team sprint, was “shocked and stunned”. Cyclists John Degenkolb and Marcel Kittel and tobogganist Felix Loch sent recovery wishes via Twitter. 100-meter sprinter Yamin Kwadwo also spoke of a shock.

Your natural gas team went a different way. The Chemnitz team launched a fundraising campaign entitled #staystrongkristina. This has already raised 120,000 euros for the benefit of Vogel and her family. With the sum Vogel wants to buy a special car and “a hot wheelchair with carbon rims”.

For Kristina Vogel, the fall at the end of June was not the only serious accident during her career. Already at the age of 18 a van had taken her right of way, whereupon she drove her wheel into the side of the vehicle. She broke a thoracic vertebra and the carpal bones. To do so, she lost several teeth and burst car windows cut open half of her face.

A brain hemorrhage was also the result of the accident in 2009, which is why Vogel was temporarily put into an artificial coma at the hospital. Two days later she was woken up again.

The list of Kristina Vogel’s successes in the course of her career is long. It wasn’t until the World Championships in March that she achieved her historic success, when she won her eleventh World Championship title and thus matched the Australian track cycling legend Anna Meares. Afterwards, she was the only number one in the world in her flagship discipline Keirin.