Water jumper Michelle Heimberg for the European Championship: ‘It almost feels like flying’

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It’s like your second home, the indoor swimming pool in Zurich-Oerlikon. Water jumper Michelle Heimberg (23) trains here six out of seven days a week. A few days before her departure for the European Championships in Poland, she sits a little away from the crowds on a large gymnastics mattress and stretches her arms and legs. This is followed by somersaults from a standing position, somersaults with stretch jumps. Then it’s on to the trampoline, right next to the diving boards. Heimberg whirls through the air. Her movements are elegant, precise, powerful.

Movement is in her blood. She’s known that since she was very little. To satisfy their daughter’s urge to exercise, the Heimbergs sent their then five-year-old daughter to gymnastics. The potential of the woman from Fislisbach was great, as was her zeal and passion. Soon she dreamed of participating in the Olympic Games. But the girl’s body threw a spanner in the works.

“It Can’t Be Boring”

“In 2011 I broke one kneecap, in 2012 the other.” The era of artistic gymnastics was over. During this time, the neighbors often called the parents’ door because little Michelle was running around the playground despite her cast. It was crystal clear: she needed a new sport.

It had to be kind to the knees and Olympic. Many team sports or athletics have already been eliminated due to these criteria. Swimming was too monotonous for the lively teenager. She attended a trial session at the rowing club. Her conclusion: too boring. She needed action. Then she discovered scuba diving: “It has an incredible variety of moves, just like gymnastics.” A new passion ignites in the young athlete. “Some jumps almost feel like flying.”

An exceptional Swiss talent

In order to train optimally, the athlete left her parental home in Aargau at the age of 16 and moved to Geneva. There she trains in a team. But no one could give her a warm heart, says her trainer Beatrix Rois-Szakadati on the edge of the pool as she films her protégé’s jumps with her iPhone. Feeling isolated in western Switzerland, Heimberg returned home. Her coach would appreciate if Michelle could train with teammates again. But there is no one in German-speaking Switzerland who even comes close to jumping at their level.

Success followed success in the juniors. At the age of 17, the young woman finally wrote sports history. At the European Championships in Kiev she won silver on the 3 meter board. It was Switzerland’s first-ever medal in the sport’s more than 100-year history. To date, two more silver medals from the European Championship have been added.

That makes you proud. And it pays off the endless training sessions, in which Heimberg climbs the springboard no less than 50 times to become a little more precise in a turn and a little straighter on a landing.

“This won’t make me rich”

The water jumper can literally buy little of these successes. “I knew from the start that I would never make a lot of money in this sport.” As a top athlete, she is financially supported by the military and Sporthilfe also contributes. But in the long run, Switzerland’s best water jumper has to earn money elsewhere. She’s already gone down that road. She studies media research and communication sciences at the University of Zurich. One day I would like to work in a foundation or in an association.

But these plans are still a long way off. Now, with the performance at the European Championships in Poland on Sunday and the World Cup in August, the next big events are coming up, where Michelle Heimberg is Switzerland’s only hope. It could very well be that their three silver medals will be accompanied by another, perhaps even gold.

Source : Blick