“In the lockdown we were only able to do the best we could with individual training.”
For Heinz Trasper, who has been associated with cycling in Lusatia all his life, the situation feels a bit schizophrenic: Now that the dark season prevails, the temperatures are not exactly inviting for daily outdoor training, while the corona incidences keep setting new record values his protégés are allowed to train unhindered. But when the best weather invited to extensive tours on the well-developed bike paths around the lignite mining area, his 25 children and adolescents between the ages of five and 16 were denied the opportunity to enjoy sport together. “In the lockdown, we could only manage each other as best we could with individual training, nothing worked with the group. During this time I tried to encourage the parents to at least cover as many kilometers as possible with their offspring, «reports Trasper, head of the three dozen pedals from the Senftenberg sports club.
The 48-year-old, who discovered the bike for himself at the age of one and also lives his love for cycling professionally as a self-employed person with his own bike shop, had plenty of reason to shake his head with his students during the pandemic: “We have so many conversations with members of the state parliament and the sports ministry But there was no getting around the prohibitions. ”Even Brandenburg’s Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD), previously head of the cycling association in the state of the“ Red Eagle ”, could only shrug his shoulders helplessly at his sports friends. “That was completely absurd, especially for a sport like ours,” Trasper told jW. “It is clear that we were particularly disappointed with federal politics. The people who made important decisions had no idea about the sport or only concentrated on competitive sport and watched the high-paid footballers get along. The DOSB, as the umbrella organization for sport, and our state sports federation have not exactly covered themselves with fame to represent our interests. “
Finally back on the road with the team: youth cycling from SV Senftenberg
Heinz Trasper is all the more pleased to register the current trend towards a more differentiated view of sporting events. He is very happy that his boys are now able to train together twice a week on the tartan surface in the athletics hall and also once in the weight room with the latest test. “We’re not careless, but that’s how it works,” reports Trasper. In lockdown, because of the strict contact blocks, he was not even allowed to hand over the license to his new trainer Fabian Voigt in front of everyone. He had come up with a “balcony scene” to please the 16 year old. The fact that a teenager agrees to assist the “old” and gradually replace them in voluntary work are important bright spots in everyday Lusatian cycling.
General Corona bicycle boom, pleasing resurrection of the »Germany Tour« in summer 2021 – things are by no means looking rosy for the offspring on racing bikes. Because of the ever stricter official requirements, the number of competitions “has gone extremely down, so that we now have to go far to Saxony.” The same negative tendency applies to cycling clubs and to cyclists in multi-disciplinary clubs. Almost a dozen have said goodbye in the recent past in Lusatia alone, even in former strongholds such as Guben or Lübbenau. Only the “oldies” were left in Calau. After all, in Finsterwalde they are still busy pedaling – and in Cottbus, where the “elite school of sports” is absolutely dependent on talent. Trasper’s protégé Jonas Reibsch has made the leap there. In the U 17 age group, the Senftenberger won ten national championship titles on track and road in a single season. Sounds very promising. “Such role models are extremely important for young talent. If these role models no longer exist in the region, then things will become even tighter, «says Heinz Trasper. His own childhood idol was called Lutz Heßlich, twice Olympic champion and in the 80s the dominator of sprinters on the oval track worldwide. Born in January 1959 in Ortrand in the Senftenberg district and today owner of a bicycle center in Cottbus.
