She was about to jump into the national squad, but decided against the sport. Marlies Oberlechner from Kreuth hung up her skis.
Schliersee - It is the dream of every ambitious young athlete: Celebrate success. Make the leap into a squad. To turn sport into a profession. The Kreutherin Marlies Oberlechner also dreamed this dream. Got him close enough to touch. But shortly before a decisive step in her career, she made a different decision. Instead of mixing up the racing circuit with her friends as a three-person dream team, the 17-year-old put her skis in the corner, preferred normal life at home to the international ski circuit and is now happy to have decided on it.
"It was such a wonderful time," says Oberlechner of her skiing career, which began at home with SC Kreuth and has steadily increased. Most recently, she was second in the U16 German Student Cup and would have made the jump into the DSV junior squad right away. That was in winter 2018/19, and the three girls from the Oberland - Lara Klein, Sophia Zitzmann and Oberlechner - were almost unbeatable. They enjoyed skiing, were supported by trainer Michaela Schmotz and imagined how they would celebrate further successes.
Don't sleep until a decision is made
But first a decision had to be made. "The way we have organized it up to now, it would not have gone any further," says the likeable high school student about her inevitably many days off. The trio had briefly dreamed of being able to train at home with Schmotz, but the German Ski Association (DSV) did not support that. One option was to continue to school in Tegernsee and train at the Garmisch base. An enormous logistical effort and no solution for the days off. The other option: the ski boarding school in Berchtesgaden. "You can train really well there, you are out and about with athletes from everywhere and school assignments are preferably written after the season." Actually perfect.
But what about the friends at home? With the traditional costume club? And what if there was an injury like the one she had experienced with Marisa Messmer from Schliersee? She didn't like the prospect of sitting alone at boarding school in such a case, nor the prospects for the future. “The probability of getting into the World Cup is so low,” Oberlechner reflected. "And then what?"
Marlies Oberlechner
© Andreas Leder
The Bundeswehr is not her professional goal, according to the young woman, who is interested in many things and who is more interested in studying meteorology or astrophysics. At some point she went to bed with the resolve not to sleep until a decision was made. She lay awake until four o'clock. The next morning, Marlies Oberlechner announced to family, friends and coaches that she was going to quit and was happy that no one wanted to talk her into conscience.
Oberlechner: It's nice to have time for the family
Nor does SVO alpine sports manager Jörg Zitzmann, who regrets it very much from a sporting point of view, but knows from a human point of view that the "extraordinary athlete" did it right for herself. As clearly structured as it is not.
Coupled with her diligence and talent, this ability would certainly have been advantageous in the ski circus, says Zitzmann, who has known her for years as a friend of his own daughter and knows that what she does has hands and feet. "She is a special person that everyone likes."
Marlies Oberlechner herself lives well with her decision, which she did not doubt when she visited her friends at races on the Sonnenbichl or in Lenggries. “I can imagine that it would have been nice.” But it is also nice to have time for family celebrations and traditional costume clubs - or to go up the mountain without a training plan. She started playing volleyball.
She only went skiing twice last winter. “I don't even have skis anymore,” she says with a laugh. Only during the Youth Olympic Games in Lausanne this year (we reported) was she a little sad because she had a good chance of starting there.