Cycling: Olympic champion Vogel paralyzed after a fall

After her severe training crash in June, track bike Olympic champion Kristina Vogel has to prepare for a life in a wheelchair. The 27-year-old from Erfurt announced her paraplegia in her first statement on her state of health in an interview with the news magazine Spiegel on Friday.

“It sucks, there’s no other way to say it. No matter how you pack it, I can no longer walk,” Vogel said: “But what should I do? I always think that the sooner you accept a new situation, the better you can deal with it.”

During training on the concrete track in Cottbus on 26 June, the woman from Erfurt collided at full speed with a rider who was also on the cycling track.

Her spinal cord was severed at the seventh thoracic vertebra, Vogel explained: “This means approximately from the chest down. “Then the line between feeling and numbness runs a little, on the left side it goes a little deeper than on the right side.”

The feeling in her legs has been lost. “I can feel my skin, but there’s no feedback. My legs don’t feel the touch. That’s hard to describe,” said Vogel.

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. If I don’t know what I can do, how can I know what I’m burning for? I’m actually comparing myself to a baby who has to learn to turn and put on herself. And it’s nice that I can take my time with it. For the first time in my life, I don’t have to, I can. I want to enjoy this situation. I’m basically free for the first time.”