Page 3/5 Artikel News Nr.8 24.02.2005
How much do you train at the moment?
At peak times, 10 times per week, five hours per day. But, of course, all training isn't the same. Sometimes it's about loosening up, swimming out, sometimes it's about building up muscles and strengthening the will.
Perhaps the right moment for a change in life arrives without clearly defined sporting criteria, through psychological reasons, for example: When one has the feeling of developing other priorities in life, for instance out of highly personal developments for which there are not such clear success parameters such as the best times or medals.
Sure. But I will miss that in my next career: Not being able to so clearly say that I am the best here and not there. Although in the case of top professional sport it's also a little like this: There are no clear criterion for success, but you must also go a bit deeper and ask yourself what you are giving up for which success?
What have you given up for your career so far?
I could certainly have achieved better marks at the university if I hadn't swum so much. I had an average mark of 1.7.
Not bad for Stanford.
But I could forget about going on to Harvard. In contrast, in the high school I was a better student than a swimmer.
Was nothing else put on hold? Friends, especially girlfriends, having fun?
I was certainly a swot in the early high school years. And not particularly popular to begin with as a result. As the leader of a school gang beat up one of my so-called swot friends, the latter wanted to tell the school director - that would have ended with a criminal conviction. Instead of this, I suggested emotional pressure. We turned the fear around - this worked. I was properly accepted when Stanford, one of the best universities in the world, requested me for their swimming team. This also required reasonable marks and an own positive test result.
But sporting top performances too. In Austria, the sport doesn't have such high importance during the schooling.
It does in other kinds of sport - skiing and now also football, for example. And such models are also currently under discussion for swimming. But it's true: In order to get into Stanford, you either have to be very wealthy or else be a top performer so that you can get a scholarship. After all, the course of studies alone cost 40,000 dollars per year.
