Special: Manuela Henkel

The cross-country skiing career of Manuela started in the kindergarten. On the day before her first competition (consisting of a downhill and an approx. 800m run) she got her first skis, ski boots, as well as the bindings. The result was a silver medal and new skis (“blue-white”), even if she was not “right in the front” within the 800m run. In the kindergarten they taught Manu that one should bob up and down a bit in the squat during the downhill. Full of enthusiasm and élan she translated that into action and from now on bobbed up and down nearly the whole time. Therefore, she had to be slowed down again in the bobbing-sector! ;-)) In those days general sports was on the order of the day every Wednesday. Manu passed through the whole way of inspection of the GDR, which means, that a coach came and kept a look-out for talents. In Grossbreitenbach he promptly made a strike. Mr Siegfried Koch (“the man with the blue metalworking dress”) became Manu’s new coach, or rather became responsible for sports now. From this time on, sports for all (boys and girls) was on the order of the day every Monday as well. Here the “little girls” pretty often became the target for balls of the boys. So Manu pretty early had to learn how to prevail and assert herself against boys. Those days were like a sign of destiny – since no female colleagues are available, she only trains with men in Oberhof today. Well, nowadays she still needs the ability to assert herself – now more, then less….. ;-)))) In those times District championships, e.g. in Suhl, were already held. The kids were introduced to competitive sports in playing terms, which was called “joy-emphasizing training” in the GDR, but this was intensified more and more, for instance by adding bike-training. This was going on until the 3^rd class.

	Manuela Henkel - © Sammy Minkhoff

From the 4^th class (age group 10) onwards Manu was admitted to the training center. Apart from the entry document she also received some run-suits. In parallel, Manu joined the army sports club, at which the training courses in Oberhof were held now. In summer the athletes went to the Baltic Sea or to Freiburg/Unstrut (well-known for the Little Red Riding-hood sparkling wine) at that time. That change wasn't seen with pleasure by mommy Henkel, but daddy Henkel finally straightened it out. From now on a regular training took place through which Manu became really good: she won all competitions!!!!!

From the 7^th class the classical style experienced a renaissance and was taken back into the program again after having been put into cold storage before. Manu was happy about this because the classical style is her most favorite one.

When Manu was in the 9^th class the reunification took place and she was admitted to the C-cadre immediately. Here all the material was on the free disposal of the athletes. This was the same as in the former GDR, with one exception: schoolbooks had to be paid. The costs for it amounted to 35 marks per month, which is a considerable sum at an income of approx. 800 marks. Being marked by the reunification, the KJS (= Kinder- und Jugendsportschule, Children and Youth Sports-School) experienced reorganization and was now called grammar school of sports. At school Manu proved herself as the big sister and saint of her younger sister, our Andrea, from time to time. After getting the abitur with the dream mark 1.0, Manu joined the Federal Armed Forces. Since 1995 she is a firm size in German cross-country skiing and fought for a medal with the relay in Nagano in 1998. When the sprint competition has been introduced, things were getting better for her steadily. In the meantime she has constantly very good rankings in this discipline.

	Manuela Henkel leads the field at the HLK in Oberhof - © AHFC

Manuela gave us an insight into her everyday training and how and why and for which reasons everything is like it is. While in the men’s team a far-reaching adaptation and specialization of the training methods to the respectively new disciplines took place, this has failed to appear in the women’s team yet. Manu most frequently participates in 5 and 10km competitions instead of 15 or 30km. She rather leaves out a longer distance to be in good shape for the 5 and 10 km runs and not to split and to use up too much substance. The results show that she is right. According to her own words, Manu runs too fast in the beginning, which has the consequence of lactate formation. It takes some time until it is decomposed again. In biathlon competitions the athletes have to run more slowly, otherwise the shooting would considerably suffer from it. Only on the final lap the biathlete opens it right up. For this reason the lactate formation of biathletes is lower than the one of cross-country skiers. The cross-country skier runs full speed up to his/her limit, while the biathlete proportionally reaches “only” 95% of his/her limit. In the cross-country skiing one has to run as fast as possible from the beginning on, just the way that one is still able to cross the finish line in the end. During the competition a cross-country skier gets some information from the respective track guards, as, for instance, running time, time up to the athlete in front of him/her, or number of competitors fighting for the same position. Manuela’s current performance level is, that she still didn’t exhausted everything yet, which means that she already trained the basics for the season, as, e.g., staying power. The finishing touches, like zippiness etc., which is especially needed for sprint competitions, will follow the upcoming weeks. According to the question why older cross-country skiers such as Stefania Belmondo are better than the younger ones, Manu explained to us that gained experiences play an important role and therefore, athletes of riper age make fewer mistakes than younger athletes.

To the question regarding the media Manu replied, that the drama of cross-country skiing comes over just insufficiently during broadcasts. One remembers: "Where is Behle" ;-))) That should get and has to become better. Manu gave us a very thrilling sample of how one could make the broadcast of cross-country skiing much more exciting. ;-))) She was a class by herself commenting a competition full of élan by heart!! We only can advise the TV stations to listen to this because they would have a gripping reporting of a real expert for the future!!! Manu – that’s it: cross-country skiing commentator, particularly since you could cover almost all important countries by speaking German, English, Russian and Norwegian, couldn’t you? ;-))))

As most favorite competitions Manu gives the events in Scandinavia, since many people are on the track there and proper supporting acts are offered to the spectators. There, everybody can find something interesting, even the youngest ones. One can say that a cross-country skiing competition matches a fair, kermis or as ever it may be called here. Therefore, even the interest of the media is huge, because the kind of sport in general plays a much more important role than in Germany.

Manu always needs people around her, because she is a very sociable person. Therefore, she visits Andrea and her parents as often as possible to do something together with them. Thus, she likes going home to Grossbreitenbach, where the whole family barbecues from time to time. Which one of the Henkel-Sisters is responsibly for what and which of both thinks that garnishing the meal is not necessary, will not be betrayed in this place!! ;-)))) The family strongly sticks together, despite or even particularly because of the journeys through which they don’t see each other for weeks or even months. The contact is always maintained. So one cannot say that the family life is suffering of the traveling.

Manuela's career can be looked up on her own new home page (www.manuela-henkel.de). We just want to say that she has the rank of a first sergeant. After the abitur she started a correspondence course in business management at the Open University of Hagen. Unfortunately, Manu had to cancel this due to coincidences of studies and sports, which still makes her a bit sad. To begin one’s studies and to finish it leisurely might stay one of her dreams for the time being. But who knows…!!!! ;-))

Manu told us quiet a bit about her hobbies, which is why we only want to mention the most important ones. On the one hand, she likes meeting her friends since she is very sociable. On the other hand, cloudberries have made quite an impression on her, which means they are picked, eaten and whatever one can additionally do with berries. Those berries only grow in Norway; they are very mellow, nearly as being overripe. We cannot say much more about it yet. Maybe Manuela could give a lecture about cloudberries on day. ;-))

And of course, we don't want to forget her greatest hobby: Norway! That’s not surprising since her boyfriend was born in Norway. Anyway, through his job (he works for the skiing firm Fischer) they don’t see each other as often as they would probably like to.

Manu’s aim of highest priority is “remaining healthy” because competitive sports goes very much to the physical substance. And the topic of being ill or injured she already had to experience painfully when she fractured her leg during the Olympic games in Nagano in 1998. Anyway, on every low follows a high again, and this she had some months ago when she surprisingly won the gold medal with the relay. This has been her most beautiful and greatest success until now! Not least because of that her sporting objective are the Olympic games in Turin in 2006.

Last but not least we want to thank Manuela for the superb and very funny evening. We got the opportunity to get to know and to learn to appreciate her from a side, which was completely unknown to us until now. It was great fun to listen to her stories and to get a little insight into the world of cross-country skiing.

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