1. What is your fascination with weightlifting?

I just have a lot of fun when things are going well.

I have always enjoyed strength training and I think it's great to be able to see my progress in concrete terms by using the weights.

It feels really good when you're sitting firmly in the squat at the bottom of the snatch, knowing you've nailed the attempt. Then all you have to do is stand up and feel the joy. It's just as great when you realize during the push that you've pushed the attempt just right and everything just fits – the barbell flies off by itself, even if you're already carrying a lot of weight.

I also find it particularly fascinating what weight really strong women in the lower weight classes (-49/ -55/ -59) can move and hold above their heads.

I want to be able to do that too.

In the Bundesliga, there's also a team spirit. Everyone is excited about every attempt, and in the end, you win together. If the atmosphere in the gym is good, it gets loud when you step onto the lifting platform, quiet when you step onto the barbell, and loud again when you've completed the attempt. It's a great feeling when so many people can celebrate with you.

When someone attempts their personal best or even a higher effort, it's naturally especially exciting. These attempts are something they've never done before. It's amazing to see how that old limit is simply pushed; that's when all the training really pays off.

2. A few years ago, you were a competitive canoe racer. Why was the switch to weightlifting so appealing?

When I quit canoe racing, I knew that if I started a new sport from scratch, I would want to compete in that sport as well. Many sports were already out of the question because, at 20, I was already too old to learn them and compete at a certain level. In weightlifting, if you have the right prerequisites and train hard, you can still be quite successful even at an advanced age.

As a competitive canoeist, I started strength training at a very young age. This mainly involved pull-ups, push-ups, bench presses, bench pulls, abdominal and back exercises – actually something completely different from what I do now. Nevertheless, at just 13 years old, I discovered my love for strength training, which I still enjoy today. Canoe racing is also a strength endurance sport – so I had a pretty good foundation, both physically and mentally, for Olympic weightlifting.

I'm also fortunate enough to be able to build muscle quickly. Within a short period of time, I developed quite strong legs thanks to all the squats and pulls required for weightlifting. My upper body, on the other hand, lost quite a bit of muscle (laughs!).

The final decision was made when I came to 100% Mannheim and my current coaches, Tom and Almir, took me seriously and supported me right from the start – that's not something to be taken for granted!

3. What does your training week typically look like? What content do you or your trainers emphasize most?

 Actually, I currently train five times a week, usually in the evening for about two to three hours – which is completely different from canoeing. When weightlifting, recovery is much more important – you're much too slow and lacking in energy if you don't give your body a chance to recover. So, it's important to take breaks, especially during intensive weeks; my trainer sometimes has to slow me down.

A lot of technique training is particularly important for me, especially in the snatch. The snatch is a very complex exercise where pure strength is unfortunately less important. It's a different story with the clean and jerk; this exercise is more forgiving of small technical errors and here you can compensate for them better with strength. Flexibility is also a particularly important aspect. At the beginning, I spent a lot, a really long time in my everyday life in a deep squat. That was a challenge, and on top of that you're supposed to hold a bar with as much weight as possible above your head... My squat is passable now, but my shoulders are still a bit too far forward from the many years I spent in the boat, which is disadvantageous in the snatch and clean and jerk - I work on this before every training session.

What's especially important to my trainer is what I affectionately refer to as "side-workouts." These are stabilization and speed exercises to prevent imbalances and bring more dynamism to the whole thing. To be honest, I'm sometimes a bit careless here, even though I know how important it is. But you always have to do them AFTER the actual training, and by then I'm often just worn out.

4. You've lifted for AV 03 Speyer in the Bundesliga over the past few seasons. What experiences have you taken away from this?

I received a wonderful welcome at the Speyer club and was able to really enjoy my first competitions in a great atmosphere.

The team was simply fantastic and gave me tremendous support as a complete newcomer. I will definitely miss them all very much!

I was immediately allowed to lift in the 2nd Bundesliga and have been able to participate in every fight (except one) over the past two years. I've been able to gain competition experience over the past two years, which unfortunately hasn't changed the fact that I'm quite nervous about my first snatch attempt.

I also competed for Speyer in the German Championships both years, and at such a big competition the atmosphere is of course completely different.

A special highlight for me was always the first division bout after our competition, where the absolute pros competed and, in some cases, even delivered their best performances on stage. It was always very impressive and gave you even more motivation—after all, you want to go there yourself...

5. Do you have any sporting role models – if so, what do you appreciate so much about them?

My athletic role model is one of my best friends, with whom I used to paddle. Even though she practices a completely different sport than I do now, I've never been able to learn more from anyone else when it comes to sports.

I don't know anyone who is as passionate about something and truly dedicated to it as she is. Her attitude toward sports and the lifestyle associated with it, as well as her hard work, are something truly special to me, even though I've met many competitive athletes.

I don't have any real role models in weightlifting (yet). There are a few women from Herber, like Lydia Valentin, whose lifts I really enjoy watching, and of course, I try to adopt some of their techniques. However, since everyone has to work with completely different conditions, and some techniques work very well for some athletes while others don't work at all, I try to find what works best for me with my trainer.

6. As an athlete, you want to win and stay healthy—but defeats and injuries are also part of the process. How do you deal with these negative experiences?

 Ideally, I'd always like to finish an exercise with my best attempt of the day, whether in competition or training—of course, that doesn't always work out. If something goes wrong in an exercise, I try not to let it get me down, but unfortunately, that doesn't always work. Sometimes I get so annoyed that I repeat an attempt until I'm satisfied with it or my coach calls it quits.

But some days it just doesn't work, so I try to figure out what might be wrong and do more sensible alternative training.

Luckily, I haven't had any major injuries yet. I occasionally have problems with my wrists. When they hurt during training, I'm always upset at first, and then I try to use the time as effectively as possible with other exercises and work on other deficiencies.

7. Is there a major sporting goal that you would like to achieve in the near or distant future?

I usually pursue several goals. Firstly, there are the shorter ones, which I set for myself quite realistically so that I can experience success and thus keep myself motivated. For example, that would be a certain amount of weight in a duel for the end of the first training cycle of this year, which ends at the beginning of September. I would like to aim for new personal bests there. The next goal is the German Championships in December, where I will also be at the end of a cycle and therefore want to set new personal bests. Which place I ultimately end up in depends very much on who starts and who perhaps moves up a weight class or comes down from the top. I formulate my goals based on my own performance and not as a ranking. Specifically, I want to snatch at least 60 kg and clean and jerk at least 85 kg at the German Championships with a body weight of under 59 kg and I actually hope to be able to raise these goals even higher, but that will depend on how my preparation goes.

My slightly higher goal in the duel is 65/90 KG with a body weight of 59 KG.

In the long term, I want to become a permanent fixture on a top-flight Bundesliga team and, in a few years, consistently be a medal contender at the German Championships, regardless of who participates. How far I can go from there will probably become clear in the next two years.