Journal

Unfortunately Carolina still wasn't able to practice in October, and except for a couple of days when she did try to, Daniel continues to practice on the ice alone. Naturally, the situation gets more and more frustrating, particularly now that the competitions have begun and you really want to finally return to training. Of course our goal remains to skate at the German Championships and to take part in the subsequent Universiade as well. Under no circumstances will we manage to go to Euros. According to the nomination guidelines, which were released this month, you have to have competed at least twice before Nationals, to put it simply.

Daniel: I noticed how much I miss skating with Carolina and the competitions when I was at the JGP in Dresden. I went to Dresden with some junior dancers from Berlin for the Free Dance on Saturday. Tom and Jule had a great showing at the competition and it was just fun to watch them all. The level of the good junior teams is at least comparable to that of the seniors. Figure skating is and will remain an incredibly fascinating sport for me.

When Mr. Skotnicky came to Berlin shortly afterwards, this motivation was still perceptible. He also praised Daniel's good training of technique and basics, which is what he currently works on. Sometimes it's indeed rather boring for him to spend 3 hours a day skating compulsory figures only, but that's the only way to bring about a good foundation for the steps.

In the middle of the month, the college semester started for us. It really is a good balance to all that training to do something for your brain every now and then. The two of us can't take as many classes as a normal student would, but we just have to make sure that we can carry on with the on-ice training even more intensively as soon as Caro is fit again, so that we can keep the chance of competing at least in a couple competitions.

For the first time in a little more than two years, the elections of the German Skating Union's athlete representatives have taken place again this month. Daniel could imagine taking on this function for a long time, and since William Beier and Stefan Lindemann both wanted to resign, Daniel was allowed to act as deputy for them at this year's general meeting of the athlete representatives which was held by the German Olympic Sports Confederation in Munich. During three days, different topics were discussed with representatives of industry and commerce, sports law, the German Olympic Sports Confederation or the National Anti-Doping Agency. Moreover, the elections for the new Advisory Council of Athlete Representatives of the German Olympic Sports Confederation took place. A really fascinating forum at which the networking of athletes and federations was further promoted. The greatest thing about this meeting was, however, to meet many athletes who were incredibly motivated to make a difference and to change things for the better. In business, you'd say: lateral thinkers. Of course the average age (approx. 26 years) was a bit older here, but athletes who have already married by then, do their PhD, study abroad, and have maybe also won an Olympic gold medal on the way are people that we other athletes can learn a lot from. At the same time, you could meet people who missed the Olympics about as narrowly as we did, so we could exchange our experiences. It was a really great experience that I would like to warmly recommend to the new team of athlete representatives. It got really motivating once more when the last presentation was given by the marketing boss of the Munich 2018 Bid Committee. If the Olympic Games 2018 are held in Germany, it'll probably be a big dream until then to end your career there.

Maybe you can tell that we slowly begin to settle in in Berlin. Lots of things get easier and easier because you get to know the city better and better. Be it the newly founded bikepool with Steffi after practice, the weekly beach volleyball matches with other athletes, or a Robert who constantly hides his peanut butter from Daniel.
Nevertheless: we won't really have arrived before training and competitions start again for us – but after all there's still a lot of time until 2018.

However, Carolina had to have surgery at the beginning of November. We will tell you more about this in our next journal entry.

Best wishes,

Carolina and Daniel