When the athlete Alexandra Burghardt thinks about the coming summer, she cannot complain of boredom. At the World Championships in Eugene / USA in July, Burghardt would like to take part in the final over 100 meters and also win a medal with the sprint relay. The emotional climax will be the European Championships, which will take place in the Munich Olympic Stadium at the end of August. If everything goes really well, the 27-year-old will have another emotional experience ahead of the competition by then: participating in the Olympic bobsleigh, at the winter games in Beijing next February – six months after Burghardt won over 100 at the summer edition in Tokyo Meters narrowly missed the final.
Sprinters in bobsleigh are not uncommon: the former decathlon world record holder Guido Kratschmer from Mainz tried it, the Potsdam Kevin Kuske advanced to become the most successful pusher worldwide with four Olympic victories. Even Tyson Gay, once the fastest 100-meter sprinter in the world (9.69 seconds), was looking for luck as a pusher after being banned from doping at 34.
And what is now Burghardt, who was the fastest German over 100 meters last summer, in the bobsleigh? “It’s the new challenge, the speed and of course the chance of an Olympic medal,” she says. In Tokyo, she once again narrowly missed the podium with the relay, finishing fifth.
After push tests in Oberhof and only three test drives in the ice channel, she recently made her debut at the World Cup in Innsbruck: as a pusher in the two-man bobsleigh run by Olympic champion Mariama Jamanka, a former athlete whose former pusher Lisa Buckwitz is now a pilot herself. “A good debut, even if not everything went optimally,” says Burghardt. Until Christmas there are: a training phase in Winterberg, then the World Cups in Winterberg and Altenberg. After Innsbruck, however, sprint training was announced again for the time being, because Burghardt is still planning a two-pronged approach. Or: two-tier.
“In the end, both sports will benefit from this symbiosis,” believes the national coach
In spite of all of the sports travel, home has become important to Alexandra Burghardt. After trips to Mannheim, St. Pölten and Linz, she returned to her home club SV Wacker Burghausen before the corona pandemic. When the coronavirus also forced athletics to come to a standstill, Burghardt saw it as an opportunity to shake off her protracted worries about injuries: “I didn’t run for six months, I started a complete rebuild, both physically and mentally,” she recalls.
The impetus was primarily given by Patrick Saile, 34, a former sprinter from Pliezhausen in Swabia, who was previously a trainer at the Bavarian Athletics Association – and in the Bobsleigh Association in Munich. In just under two years, Burghardt increased from 11.32 to 11.01 seconds under her new coach. Last summer she won both national sprint titles, over 100 and 200 meters. With her best time over 100 meters, she was number four in Europe recently, which also raises hopes for the European Championships in Munich: “To win a medal there as the fastest German and local hero would be awesome,” she says. She currently drives to Saile in Zurich every two weeks and trains there in Letzigrund, because her trainer now looks after the Swiss athletics sprinters on a full-time basis.
Wrapped up a little warmer in winter: Burghardt between the two-man bobsleigh World Cup races on her debut in Innsbruck.
(Photo: Jan Hetfleisch / Getty Images)
For Saile, who also trains the two-time World Championship bronze winner Laura Nolte, Burghardt’s winter trip also has pragmatic reasons: The explosive start in the ice channel, from a crouch, can be compared to the start from the sprint block, he says; That is one of the reasons why he had trained Burghardt earlier with exercises from bobsleigh. Burghardt also appreciates the advantages for the head when you get out of the daily grind from time to time. “Bobsleigh is the icing on the cake,” she says. The forces when the vehicle rushes through the banked curves are enormous, “an invisible hand is pressing you against the bottom of the sled”. But she is not afraid.
Ronald Stein, the national trainer for the sprint department in the German Athletics Association, has no objections to cheating. Burghardt has a high basic speed, accelerates extremely quickly, which is essential on the 40 meter long start ramps of bobsleigh. At 72 kilograms, she also has an ideal weight to push the 170 kilogram bobsleigh. “In the end, both sports benefit from this symbiosis,” believes Stein, who was once the junior world champion in bobsleigh. When is the core Olympic summer sport ever so present in winter?
After her ice age until the Christmas holidays, Burghardt will transform herself into a track and field athlete again with a ten-day training camp in Tenerife. Then Kira Lipperheide, also a sprinter, takes over as Jamanka’s pusher. Should Burghardt be given preference for Beijing, she could fly back after the two-man bobsleigh final on February 18 and a week later be in the starting block at the German indoor championships in Leipzig in the 60 meter final. Maybe with an Olympic medal in their luggage.