In the training room of the TuS Schwanheim shooters there is a table football and a table tennis table. The door is at the far end of the antechamber, at the end of the cloakroom wall where the members’ jackets overlap. To get to the entrance, first pass the TuS Schwanheim club restaurant and the bowling alley. An inconspicuous place.
But a shooter is training here who wants to be at the forefront of the Shooting World Championships in Baku at the end of August. Kris Großheim was junior world champion in the discipline of running target over ten meters in 2018, and in 2020 he was tenth in the men’s category. At the age of 24, a long career in shooting sports is still possible for him – and in that he would “just like to win as many as I can at European and World Championships”. Next in Baku.
“This was my day”
When he started shooting in 2011, the club joked that one day they would make a German champion out of him. At the summer festival in Schwanheim, he tried his hand at the air rifle, “apparently I was quite talented there”. Coming from a footballing family, Großheim had previously tried his hand at team sports, but “when you have people there who don’t want the same thing as you do, you just get annoyed”. He is aware that he pursues sport with greater ambition than others. Even when playing football with friends, for example, he automatically tries to always get the best out of himself.
In shooting, this attitude brought about the first major successes from mid-2015, initially at the Hessian championships. Even if the thought of world championships was “not quite there yet”, he suddenly realized what was possible. In December 2015, the first qualification for a European Championship followed, and in 2016 the first individual medal, bronze, at a World Championship. “That was just my day,” Großheim recalls. He was also able to surpass himself in other competitions: “Pressure has always been a bit mine. I like to perform at my best in major competitions.”
The target that Kris Großheim shoots at moves continuously. : Image: Anton Vester
When shooting, it is particularly important to remain calm and focused under stress. The target at ten meters passes horizontally in five seconds in a slow run, and two meters in a fast run in 2.5 seconds. During this time the shooter has to position himself, aim and fire. “When I’m in a good mood, my shot is halfway out in the fast run, after less than 1.5 seconds,” says Großheim. The target with ten rings has a diameter of around five centimeters – millimeters decide between victory and defeat.
That’s exactly what fascinates Großheim about the sport, “how much precision you can get out of your body”. After “a few thousand shots” arms, torso and eyes learn to work independently – if you don’t interrupt them with circling thoughts. Especially as a teenager, the calmness also helped him to calm down and be able to concentrate for longer. Prejudices that his sport is only about shooting annoy him.
“These aren’t weapons for us, they’re sports equipment,” he says resolutely. As is required in competitions, he always pulls a cord through the barrel in the training room when he is not shooting. This shows that there is no cartridge in it. “There is a lot of attention to safety. And that’s a good thing,” he says.
Sara Wagener Published/Updated: Recommendations: 4 Sara Wagener Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 3 Katja Sturm Published/Updated: ,
At normal times, he trains three to four times a week, before major competitions every day. After studying mechatronics, this could become more difficult: Because the discipline is not Olympic, he cannot join the police or the army through sport. In 2018, when he became junior world champion, he had 300 days of training and competition. He gets 25,000 to 35,000 shots a year. When preparing for a competition, he sometimes fires 50 or 60 cartridges at a time, “that’s really fun”. Was that meant to be sarcastic or serious? “Both,” he says, laughing.
