In the Asklepios Clinic Bad Tölz, she helps people who have had a stroke or have Parkinson's. In her free time, Michaela Henry indulges her passion in the sand.
Bad Tölz - lightning-fast reactions. Precise assumptions and tailor-made feeds. Sweaty sprints in the deep sand. High jumps from soft ground and successful degrees: Beach volleyball requires complete physical fitness. "For me, beach volleyball is like vacation," says Dr. Michaela Henry. "Sun, good mood on the edge of the field, fun on the field, that is real holiday flair."
The doctor at the Asklepios City Clinic in Bad Tölz knows what she is talking about. After all, the Munich resident was involved in the top German beach volleyball championships for a long time, and at the age of 40, she definitely doesn't want to keep her feet still. It is currently 22nd in the German ranking. She had to bury the original plan to appear again at the German Championships because her partner Tatjana Zautys was injured. "But we may attack again next year."
Michaela Henry started in 2006 at the European Beach Volleyball Championships
Beach volleyball is Henry's great passion. A sport enthusiast from an early age, she skied and played tennis, but was more of the team athlete type and ended up playing volleyball at a very early age, at the age of seven - and got stuck there. Was successful. She played 1st Bundesliga at TSV Sonthofen as an outside attacker in the hall. At the beginning of 2000 she switched to beach volleyball. Henry became one of the best German women in the profession. Even now she doesn't have to hide from the competition, some of which are half her age. There is a senior age group. But that's not for them. “We're a bit like the oldies on the tour,” says Henry with a smile. "But we can still keep up."
Bringing sport, family and work under one roof: That is the challenge for Dr. Michaela Henry, prospective specialist in physical and rehabilitative medicine at the Asklepios Clinic in Tölz.
© Asklepios
Just as it used to be at the international level. Henry competed in the 2006 European Championship, several times in German championships, won five Bavarian championship titles and played the 1st Bundesliga for two years - sometimes parallel to her tournaments in the sand. After a cruciate ligament rupture in 2012, she ended the indoor version and only played beach volleyball. The journeys, the immense strain - “the switch from sand back to the hall floor was incredibly exhausting,” says Henry. "At some point I was out of age."
Her sport is still a challenge. Henry has an eleven year old son, Luca, who job in neurology Monday through Wednesday. It helps patients who are hospitalized after a stroke, Parkinson's disease or other nervous system disease. There is also beach training three times a week. She must and can bring all of this under one roof. But only because her husband, who used to be a volleyball player, understands his sports-loving wife. And because Henry has good time management. Before, during her medical studies at LMU Munich, she used the bus trips to the Bundesliga away games to study. “In competitive sport you just have to be able to organize well.” This is how she manages to have her passion, her job and family under control - and still walk through the hospital corridors in a relaxed manner.
And recently over the sand again. After the corona-related forced break in beach volleyball, the competitions started again. Henry planned to go down the street to Timmendorfer Strand, that is, to the German championships, again. But her partner's injury thwarted her plans. A quick representation made no sense. The great strength of the two was an incredibly accurate pass. This enabled them to achieve a very effective sideout, they could quickly make the point from assuming. "It would have been a good fit, I didn't want to play the German Tour with anyone else." Henry competed for SV Lohhof in two tournaments on the Bavarian level - and won two victories with her interim partner. So the vacation can go on.
