Paralympics: Niko Kappel and the new level in para sports

In a conversation with Niko Kappel, you immediately notice how quickly he can switch between humor and seriousness. First, the shot putter reports on an advertising campaign: a bakery company had shown his face next to a loaf of bread on posters. “Hoping that people don’t confuse us,” says Kappel and laughs briefly. A few moments later he speaks with a serious look about the everyday life of disabled people.

At the Paralympics in Paris, Niko Kappel is one of the best-known personalities among the 143 athletes on the German team. He owes this to his successes, his Paralympic gold medal in Rio in 2016 and his two World Championship titles in London in 2017 and recently in Kobe, Japan. But it is not success alone: ​​with his communication and management, Kappel symbolizes the professionalization of Paralympic sport. He says: “I can concentrate on the sport and continue working on important details.”

The shot putter is one of the few full professionals among the German Paralympians. After his victory in Rio 2016, the trained banker gradually reduced his job in customer advice. Kappel continually expanded his network of sponsors – including a bank, an insurance company and medium-sized companies from his home region near Stuttgart. “I really enjoy developing new initiatives with the sponsors,” he says. He invited more than 30 people from his sponsor environment to his competition on Monday.

This environment gives Kappel freedom for training, but also for politics. In his hometown of Welzheim he sits on the local council for the CDU. At the state level in Baden-Württemberg he is committed to sports and volunteer work, at the federal level he is active in the sports network for the CDU. He also often speaks at conferences and explains in detail to students that his height of 1.40 meters does not have to be a disadvantage.

At the age of 13, Niko Kappel watched the Beijing Paralympics on television, where the short shot putter Mathias Mester won silver. Kappel took a similar path. In 2012, at the age of 17, he took part in the Paralympic youth camp in London, a sports educational trip for young people with and without disabilities. Kappel sat in the stadium with 80,000 spectators. He was thrilled and really wanted to go to the Paralympics himself.

The fact that he celebrated his greatest success to date in Rio at the age of 21 also secured him political credibility. While many people’s representatives talk abstractly about inclusion and equal rights for people with disabilities, Kappel provides clear examples from his everyday life. In Stuttgart, Paralympic shot putters like him train in a group with Olympic athletes. You benefit from the same trainers, facilities and physiotherapists. “We are not competition,” says Kappel. »We can tell each other secrets and give tips. We learn from each other.«

At 29, Kappel is now in his prime shot put age. He would also like to take part in the 2028 Paralympics in Los Angeles. But he can’t yet say whether he wants to continue until 2032, when the games take place in Brisbane, Australia. In any case, he would like to continue to campaign for people with disabilities, perhaps in a political office in Baden-Württemberg or at the federal level. In 2020 he founded an association with former track and field athlete Heinrich Popow to promote Paralympic talent.

If you will, Kappel embodies a Paralympic standard that other athletes also work towards. He relies on a sports agency and a communications consultant. Whether this network continues to grow also depends on its performance in Paris. With a gold medal, he would appear again on talk shows and later in annual reviews. “These are my third Paralympics, but they feel like the first,” he says. »I will enjoy the atmosphere in the stadium.«

Niko Kappel can be relaxed and serious, often at the same time.