NNot even the prospect of the Biathlon World Championships on his own doorstep could motivate Erik Lesser. “It’s just another year of drudgery. Another summer where I have to think: is it enough? Isn’t that enough?” said the Thuringian on Thursday in the podcast “Das Biathlon-doppelzimmer”, which he runs together with his long-time teammate and friend Arnd Peiffer.
That’s why the 33-year-old former world champion will end his career in two and a half weeks: “That’s it for me. I’ll pack my things here now, do my three World Cups and then: Adios Amigos!”
It comes as a bit of a surprise that Lesser will not be attending the World Cup in his home town of Oberhof in February 2023. But the veteran openly admitted: “My motivation is becoming increasingly sparse.” In competitions he is still “hot”, but: “I don’t want to do that anymore as an active athlete.”
Lesser goes one year after Olympic champion Arnd Peiffer and long-standing relay finalist Simon Schempp, and German winter sports have thus lost another athlete from a particularly strong generation. Even if Lesser was recently unable to continue his heyday.
His world was not just the shooting target: Erik Lesser still wants to become a coach.
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Image: dpa
In 2014 he won two Olympic silver medals in Sochi before delivering his masterpiece in Finland a year later. The world title in the pursuit and with the German relay are very special moments for him. Now the young father wants to take care of his little daughter Anouk and girlfriend Nadine; “The time away from home is becoming increasingly difficult. I have to admit that it takes me more and more every time, ”said Lesser.
Now he wants to take a longer break and then return to the shooting range. “I want to become a coach and I have to start my coaching studies,” said Oberhofer in the joint podcast with Peiffer. For three or four years he has been planning to switch to a coach, but he will certainly not take over his own training group this summer, he just wants to get the licenses for now.
Graduation at Holmenkollen planned
Lesser has started 276 times in the World Cup so far, and he would like to be there for the finale on March 20th at Holmenkollen in Norway’s capital Oslo. “In the cradle of winter sports I can say goodbye, hopefully in the mass start. That’s a really smooth exit,” said Lesser, who also stands out next to the cross-country ski run and the shooting range. As a member of the Athletes’ Commission of the World Federation IBU, he speaks clearly about grievances and recently, as one of the very few active people, he also tangled with the IOC at the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.
The games are “under the headline: money, generate money. It’s about nothing else here,” Lesser had said and also criticized the gigantic nature of the new competition venues and President Thomas Bach personally. In terms of sport, he was no longer able to convince as 67th in the individual, with fourth place in the relay it was not enough for the hoped-for fourth and last Olympic medal.
The World Cup for the German men starts on Friday with the relay race in Kontiolahti, Finland, before heading to Otepää in Estonia and finally to Norway in the coming week. But of course Lesser is already thinking ahead: “I’m looking forward to the time afterwards.”
