Biathlete Vanessa Voigt is looking forward to the upcoming biathlon season. However, her preparation for the winter went differently than planned: the 27-year-old pulled the ripcord and took some time off.
Biathlete Vanessa Voigt had to take a break for around a month and a half in the summer due to mental problems, but is now ready for the new season. “There were days when I lay in bed and couldn’t get up. My body felt so exhausted, as if I had had five days of extreme strength training,” the 27-year-old told the “Thüringer Allgemeine” before the start of the World Cup in Kontiolahti.
In Finland there will be relay competitions this weekend. “It’s nice that the relays are starting and we can distribute the pressure a little across the whole team,” says Voigt, who finished eighth overall in the World Cup last season. She recently spoke to Eurosport about a very strenuous winter of 2023/24 and therefore “not optimal” preparation and said: “I then pulled the ripcord.”
Painting pictures and knitting socks instead of shooting and rolling – that was on her agenda, as Voigt revealed to the “Thüringer Allgemeine”. She also rearranged her apartment several times. The athlete Vanessa was put at the back, and on some days she was “just the daughter, the sister or the friend”.
A time out for self-protection
The 27-year-old had already written on Instagram at the end of July about a “mental breakdown” and a month and a half break for “self-protection reasons”. She was congratulated on the decision by her mental coach. He said it was a success to have recognized the personal situation himself.
After a long period of switching off, she heard the whirring noise of the roller skis on the Oberhof asphalt and felt like rolling along again: “Then it started to tingle again.” Now she wants to enjoy the upcoming competitions.
dpa/mel
