Solved: Claudia Pechstein on the way to the press conference in the Berlin Müggelturm
Photo: dpa/Sebastian Christoph Gollnow
Do you look like triumphal trains? On Monday morning you think you think you are more at a victory in the “Captain” hall of the Berlin Müggelturm than at a press conference. The sun shines through the panoramic windows, more than 100 people came, not only reporters, but also all sorts of Eastern celebrities: Box coach Ulli Wegener, Puhdys guitarist Dieter »Quaster« Hertrampf, moderator Jürgen Karney. Sparkling glasses clink, flash lights, and again and again are applauded, in the middle of Claudia Pechstein. She smiles confidently.
The speed of ice is 53 years old, a fighter nature, she wants to celebrate her last great success as an athlete today. “I’m free,” she says in the crowd, “free of this case.” Behind the five-time Olmpia champion are 16 years of a bitter legal dispute with the International ISU Union (ISU), from which she demanded 8.4 million euros in damages due to an unjustly granted doping lock. At the end of February an agreement was reached with the World Association, the details of which have been agreed.
Yes, she feels fully rehabilitated after the agreement, she answers a journalist. “Justice wins, I always said that,” says Pechstein. In 2009, the international ice skating union closed the Berliner for doping for two years-due to evidence: in a number of samples of her blood, the proportion of reticulocytes (young red red blood cells) was unusually high. After the indirect evidence, the Olympic champion was suddenly considered a doper via the biological pass.
But Pechstein, referred to an inherited blood tanomaly, presented himself to the hereditary blood anomaly, which supported their thesis and finally went the long way through the instances: International Sports Court (CAS), Swiss Federal Court, European Court of Human Rights, Regional Court Munich, Higher Regional Court in Munich, Federal Court of Justice, Federal Constitutional Court. After the highest German court had hit her side in 2022, the way was clear for a comparison with ISU.
“I longed for the moment that the case was over long,” said Pechstein her court marathon. The police chief of the Federal Police does not only use the appearance high above the Müggelsee to cheer on the legal success against ISU. At the same time, she also announces the end of her extraordinary career: “I stood on the ice for more than 50 years, and it is enough for me,” so the Berliner, who once started as a figure skater. “I’ll end my career.”
Most recently, she had stood on the ice in the World Cup in January 2024. Until her agreement with ISU on February 27, she had repeatedly hinted at to strive for a start at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. In 2022 she was allowed to wear the German flag in Beijing at the opening ceremony of the winter games. In addition to the Japanese ski jumper Noriaki Kasai, she is the only winter Olympic woman who started eight times at the Olympics. In 1992 she was there for the first time in Albertville in French and has only been missing in 2010 – because of the ISU that was imposed.
In total, Claudia Pechstein collected nine Olympic and 41 World Cup medals, she set up six world records and looks back on 34 World Cup victories today. In 1995 she managed the first, the last one in November 2017 – at the proud age of 45. Now the record Olympionary wants to continue as a trainer and consultant: “So I am still on the ice, but no longer as a athlete.” Pechstein has been acting as a base trainer in Inzell (Bavaria) since June last year. “I want to make the skating of ice again successful again,” she describes her new goals. She had completed her studies that she was now a graduate trainer. “I’m a little proud of it!” She smiles.
Pechstein says that all the processes were only possible thanks to many donations. She will now keep her promise and return the money. “I love to pay everything back, every cent,” says Pechstein. “Many wanted me to donate the money to social purposes, I will also do that on request.” In addition, she wants to write a book about her life, and celebrate a real final with fans and sports stars: not in the Müggelturm Saal, but on the ice of the corrugated plate in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen.
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