Köhler and Trippel Sportsman of the Year

FRANKFURT – (mud). The times in which Hessen’s “Sportsman of the Year” were solemnly honored and celebrated as part of the Olympic Ball Night in the Wiesbaden Kurhaus are not currently. Nevertheless, there was of course an election organized by the State Sports Association of Hesse this year as well. The Frankfurt swimmer Sarah Köhler, who was elected in 2019, and the Rüsselsheim judoka Eduard Trippel made the race. Köhler won with 46.1 percent of all votes in front of the dressage rider Dorothee Schneider (30.5 percent), who has lived in Wiesbaden for a long time, and the table tennis player Petrissa Solja (23.4 percent). The 24-year-old Trippel, who was voted Newcomer of the Year in 2018, won with 48.6 percent of the votes, clearly ahead of Uwe Wahlig (glider / 29.1 percent) and Christian Reitz (shooting / 22.3 percent).

Both winners are also Olympic medalists. At the games in Tokyo, Koehler finished third in the 1500 meter freestyle final. With this she won the first Olympic pool medal for the German Swimming Association in 13 years. With silver in the individual and a bronze medal in the team mixed competition, Trippel is one of the most successful German participants in the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The prospective police superintendent said: “This election is a special honor for me and of course I am very happy.” The vote did not surprise him “to be honest, because I did a lot of advertising on the social platforms that people are voting for me. And I do think that I pretty much deserved it with the two surprising Olympic medals ”. What he will do with the 1000 euros that six of the seven winners from the 6500 total bonus will be granted, he does not yet know: “I will probably leave it or invest somewhere before I spend it pointlessly.”

There is a specialty among the para-athletes of the year. The marksman Natascha Hiltrop, who starts for SV Lengers and trains at SV Falke Dasbach, and wheelchair basketball player Svenja Mayer from the Rhine River Rhinos from Wiesbaden share the title. Both got exactly 36.2 percent of the vote. Hiltrop won gold and silver at the Paralympics, Mayer and her team came fourth in Tokyo. Wheelchair basketball was also the trump card when it came to choosing the team of the year. The RSV Lahn-Dill won the Champions League once again. Hesse’s para-athlete of the year also comes from Wetzlar: It is athlete Felix Streng who brought gold over 100 meters and silver over 200 meters from Tokyo. Hesse’s trainer of the year is Jörg Roßkopf, who has been national table tennis trainer since 2010. There have been numerous titles under his direction, and the team won silver at the most recent Olympic Games in 2021. And Hesse’s newcomer of the year is Jule Behrens (Triathlon, DSW Darmstadt).

The winners were chosen by experts from the sports editorial offices of the Hessian media and by a public vote carried out by Hessischer Rundfunk. The votes of the experts and the audience each contributed 50 percent to the final result. “Despite the difficult pandemic-related situation in young talent and top-class sport in 2021, our Hessian athletes have achieved outstanding results. This is underscored not least by the results of Tokyo, but also and especially by the numerous international successes in the youth field, “said Lutz Arndt, LSBH Vice-President of Competitive Sports, about the choice of athletes, who are expected to be honored in the first half of 2022 at a special event should be.