Since Tuesday morning, Renate Walter has been able to describe what happens when the community of St. Peter in the district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald is happy about a gold medal. It’s lucky to be able to reach her at all, she says on the phone, and during the conversation the cell phone rings again in the background. The costume tailor called, the elementary school teacher, former holiday guests on her farm. The senior boss of the food retail business brought a card over, “I can’t believe it at all”. The postman also congratulated him, SWR will come later. “Family, ski club, everyone is upside down. You can’t go to the village, you can’t come home!”
Renate Walter’s daughter Leonie, 18, had already won two bronze medals in the first days of the Paralympics in Beijing, in the biathlon sprint and in cross-country skiing over 15 kilometers, each behind 15-year-old Linn Kazmaier. The fact that both of them surprisingly ran so far up the front in the competitions for visually impaired athletes was due not only to their obvious talent but also to the numerous Russian women who were banned because of the war in Ukraine and who are among the top places in the world rankings.
On Tuesday in the biathlon there were the next medals for Germany in the Nordic disciplines, silver for Martin Fleig and bronze for Anja Wicker. Of the two youngest in the German team, only Walter started the race over ten kilometers, Kazmaier should take it easy. Walter shot clean – and then ran with her guide Pirmin Strecker 3.4 seconds faster than the Ukrainian Oxana Schischkowa, who had previously won gold twice. “I was at the finish, I waited and didn’t know if it was enough,” said Walter: “At some point everyone jumped up, then I realized: Okay, I’ve got it.”
A congenital disability leaves Leonie Walter with less than five percent vision
Before these Paralympics, the problems of young talent in German disabled sports were a big topic, only 17 athletes are at the start for Germany in China. But now it’s a 15-year-old and an 18-year-old who have won most of the medals so far. Is there anything we can learn from this about the promotion of Paralympic sport? Renate Walter says, without being asked: “Please write: The St. Peter Ski Club is such a great club. And the greatest man in the St. Peter Ski Club is your former coach, Albert Kürner.” He, she says, “made the girl grow up.”
Leonie Walter, born with a disability that leaves her with less than five percent vision, started cross-country skiing at the age of seven in her home club. At the time, at the St. Peter ski club, they didn’t have much experience promoting disabled sports, says Renate Walter, but the Albert Kürner mentioned did a course at the Olympic base. And then he ran in front of her daughter in more than 100 races as a guide. “He just had fun with it and was able to support her optimally”.
Leonie Walter has been at the sports boarding school at the Olympic base in Freiburg for a year and a half. Of course, says her mother, sport is not the solution for everything. But through sport, her daughter develops in a way that would have been much more difficult without it. “We’re really, really lucky as parents.”
Mother and daughter talked to each other right after the race, via a live call in the ARD interview. Renate Walter called: “The whole of St. Peter is now waiting for you!”
