“You want to go there,” was the big plan that Theresa Stoll forged at the age of twelve. It was summer, August 2008, and when she came into the living room early in the morning, her father was already watching TV and watching the Olympics in Beijing, preferably judo.
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A dozen years later, her “big dream” should become a reality, and after being postponed by a year due to Corona, it will actually come true this summer: participation in the Olympic Games. Theresa Stoll, now 25, won’t travel to Tokyo just to be there. The Munich resident made good use of the additional year and developed into a top performer in the 57 kilogram class, who can be counted among the smaller group of favorites.
The latest proof of her ability was her dynamic performance at the World Championships in Budapest, where she won bronze on Tuesday. When reaching for the medal, she prevailed against world number one Christa Deguchi from Canada in the Golden Score. “Theresa was world class today,” enthused national coach Claudiu Pusa: “It was fantastic how she threw the world champion in the small final with Ippon.”
Theresa Stoll also won all further fights with a big score, only in the pool final she was inferior to the new world champion Jessica Klimkait (Canada). Bronze at the World Cup is the greatest success of her career so far, but no surprise either, because Theresa Stoll had already won bronze at the European Championships in November, as well as at the Grand Slams in Tashkent and Kazan.
In lightweight she has dominated the German judo scene together with her twin sister Amelie since 2016. Until the Rio Games, Miryam Roper was the benchmark, but after the Stoll sisters proved to be a promise for the future, Roper moved to her father’s home country and has since started for Panama. Since only one athlete per nation and weight class is approved for the Olympics, the sisters also inevitably became rivals. Amelie took the fact that the national trainer preferred Theresa Stoll a year ago: she is still available to her sister as a comrade. A great advantage that Theresa appreciates: “She is always a good partner.”
“I want to become a doctor”
A decisive key qualification is Theresa Stoll’s determination. She not only manages to fight her way up in her sport, but also to complete a medical degree. “It’s both fun,” she says of the double burden that she copes with thanks to well-developed time management. In addition, she benefits from being able to challenge herself not only physically in training, but also mentally at university. Incidentally, she made her professional plan early on. After an internship in nursing, she knew: “I want to become a doctor.”
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