Anna Liesemarie Wruck’s stay in her grandmother’s country began with a breakdown. The new middle blocker of the volleyball Bundesliga club VC Wiesbaden, like her teammate Ashley Evans, had to complete two corona tests on German soil in quick succession in order to be allowed to start team training in the event of negative results. But the final proof disappeared. The assigned laboratory had to repeat the last smear that was due. The 27-year-old American only got to know her teammates one day later than planned, last Friday.
Unlike all samples, the first impression was positive. “Nice people, warm welcome,” summed up the athlete from Oregon. Her engagement in the state capital is not her first in Europe. Wruck was already active in Hungary, Portugal and Finland. After her time in Kuusamo, where she was “far away from everything”, she is looking forward to an environment in which “is really busy”. In addition, Germany is “a great place” to live, especially during the pandemic. In the United States, the young woman criticizes, the handling of the Covid-19 pathogen is abused too much for “political games”.
On the floor, the newcomer wants to help the VCW into the play-offs, which the VCW had no chance of when the previous season was canceled in ninth place. The Alaska-born athlete thinks she has recognized the potential for it. The fact that the squad, which was not very convincing recently, has hardly changed and with four departures apart from her and setter Evans only her substitute wife Pauline Schultz from the second team does not diminish her optimism. “One of the best things about volleyball is that you never know what the season will bring,” says Anna Wruck firmly. In Lapland, for example, their team was expected somewhere in the middle; at the early end of the season it topped the ranking.
Despite her German relatives, Anna Wruck doesn’t speak a word of the foreign language and so far only knew Frankfurt Airport in this country. Her grandmother was born in Munich and emigrated overseas in her late twenties. The granddaughter hopes to find out more about this part of her family soon. She loves to be on the move. At 18, she toured New Zealand – with the result that the whole family relocated there a short time later and didn’t return until that summer.
Anna Wruck found her passion for sport at the age of twelve through a teacher who was also a volleyball trainer. “She saw me come in and promised me the suitability on the head.” She was already “a long baby”. Today she measures 1.88 meters. Anna Wruck’s personal goals include playing professional volleyball as long as possible. She does not yet know which path she will take in professional terms. “Maybe I’ll meet a nice volleyball player by then,” she adds. So far it has not worked.
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