Tyler Edtmayer from Lenggries and Clemens Wickler from Starnberg are at the Olympic Games

For the Lenggries skateboard professional Tyler Edtmayer and the Starnberg beach volleyball player Clemens Wickler, a lifelong dream comes true: The Oberlanders are at the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Lenggries / Bad Tölz / Starnberg - a childhood dream comes true for both of them.

"I dreamed of the Olympics when I was a little sports-loving boy, and now I'm really into it," says Tyler Edtmayer from Lenggries.

"For me, a lifelong dream is coming true," says Clemens Wickler, who learned to play volleyball at TV Bad Tölz and is now extremely successful in the sand: The 26-year-old from Starnberg is the reigning German champion - since 2018 in a duo with Julius Thole ( 24) - in beach volleyball in the Olympic race.

Skateboarding for the first time discipline at the Summer Olympics

Edtmayer is at an Olympic premiere: For the first time, skateboarding is in the program of the Summer Games. The 20-year-old starts in the "Park" discipline, a highly acrobatic affair. He has to drive through a concrete tub with obstacles on his roller board within 45 seconds. But not just somehow: what counts are the height of the jumps, creativity of the tricks, technical cleanliness and "the power, that is, how to use the park with its obstacles optimally". The athletes who race against each other in heats are rated by a jury with 0 to 100 points. The Lenggrieser, who now has an apartment in Tölz, has come a long way in his sport. Edtmayer, son of an American mother, is the best German in his discipline and has won the German championship in the park three times in a row. That he is there now:“Still surreal to me.” But every day it becomes a little more real.

Lenggrieser wants to be at least in the top 10 in Tokyo

At the international level, the grapes hang a little higher.

Even for the best German.

Edtmayer experiences this regularly at competitions around the world, in which he has now made it to 17th place in the world rankings and has thus qualified for the Summer Games in Tokyo.

For the Olympic competition, he plans to place himself in the top ten.

“I always set my goals high,” says the ambitious athlete, who sporadically works as a photo model.

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The duo Clemens Wickler and Julius Thole are the only German beach volleyball team in Tokyo.

© BEAUTIFUL SPORTS

Wickler does not want to commit to a medal either. Too much has gone wrong so far this year. “An absolute disaster season,” the TVT volleyball player even calls it. He doesn't just mean the corona-related restrictions that have plagued all athletes for the last year and a half. But above all, the German duo's bad luck with injuries: At the end of March, the 26-year-old had to be hospitalized with appendicitis during a training camp on Fuerteventura and had an immediate operation. And then his partner Julius Thole in Sochi (Russia) tore a ligament in the ankle of his left foot and had to take a three-week break. Nonetheless, Wickler is optimistic: "If things go well, we definitely belong to the group that can win a medal."

Wickler does not want to commit to one medal

Both Olympians are now looking forward to being able to take part in the tournaments.

While Wickler is already in Japan - the beach volleyball tournament begins for the only German team on July 25th - Edtmayer will not take the plane to Tokyo until July 27th.

"Until then, I'll take it a little easier with my training." If falls are almost the order of the day in his sport, he now makes sure that nothing goes wrong as far as possible.

After all, you don't have the opportunity to make a childhood dream come true every day.

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Acrobatic affair: Skateboarder Tyler Edtmayer goes to the “Park” in the Olympic race.

© Adam Pretty 

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