DThe fact that Laura Nolte used to do athletics herself – the sprint – helps enormously today. “I have a good education,” she says. So Nolte not only knows what to do. She also knows why. Because the sentence “Winter athletes are made in summer” is so true, says the Olympic champion in two-man bobsleigh and laughs: “Many don’t even know what we do from April to September” – and many don’t even know how Laura Nolte does without racing suit and helmet looks like.
These days you would have to go to the time-honoured “Red Earth” facility next to the Westfalenstadion. Laura Nolte can be found there almost every morning in summer. She says: “I train in the mornings from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. In the afternoons I have physiotherapy and active regeneration – yoga, swimming or just going for a walk. In the evenings I have appointments or plan the next few weeks and the upcoming competitions.”
Brakewoman Levi “searched and found”
She is also still studying business psychology at the University of Bochum, and her employer, the Bundeswehr, would like to see her as a staff sergeant (although she is released during her active career). The athlete from Unna, who competes for BSC Winterberg, also thinks about relaxing: “I go out sometimes when I have time in the evening.”
Phone calls to her friend and brakewoman Deborah Levi are also part of everyday life; In general, Deborah Levi is a very important person in Laura Nolte’s life: “Debbie and I looked for each other and found each other. We spend so much time together, we hang out so close, but if we could have two single rooms at competitions, we would opt for a double room again.”
When she is not training in Dortmund, she practices in Frankfurt together with Deborah Levi, who lives in Frankfurt, in the athletics stadium on Hahnstrasse. Then coach David Corell is there too. What do you train in summer? “A lot of sprint and power. For me, every day in training is: get strong. A bob weighs 170 kilograms – you have to move it first. I definitely have to be fast. Driving well is not enough. What we lose at the start triples on the track.”
Since winning the gold medal in Beijing at the beginning of the year, Laura Nolte has had the feeling that the hardships of the past seven years have paid off. Next season, the World Championships in St. Moritz will be the highlight of the season. And it’s a lot of invisible work that the 23-year-old athlete has to do. “As a pilot, I am the team manager. The whole organization is up to me, organizing trips, booking hotels, contacting sponsors,” she says.
Self is the woman
She drives the bus that the two of them travel in (usually heading south), sometimes at night – which her parents don’t always think is great. The woman is herself: “We have to drive the bobsleigh from A to B, and also lift it into the transporter.” And if you look into the dark season, a rather annoying job appears on the horizon: “In winter we spend a lot of time in the garage and polish and grind the runners.” The two then spend eight to ten hours a week with their sports equipment; A time when they would rather drive more: “We could definitely get a lot out of it,” says Laura Nolte – who, however, has come to terms with the fact that nobody takes anything from them: “We two are the team.”
The closer the winter season gets, the more specific the training becomes. After the track and field training, from mid-July there was also the drudgery on the push-off tracks, where the start in the bobsleigh is simulated on tartan. Mostly in Winterberg on Saturdays, where she also meets national coach René Spies, but sometimes also in Potsdam or Berchtesgaden. “Every pitch is different,” she says. “It’s just that we can’t go bobsledding in the summer, we just practice push-pull.”
But to a certain extent she also drives in the warm season – “I look at the GoPro rides on YouTube on the gondolas and drive the lanes visually. There will be new tracks again next season, and I can see them in all perspectives on YouTube in the summer.”
Laura Nolte doesn’t want to do without mental support. Especially after her fall in Altenberg in February, she sees a need here. Every two weeks (also in summer) she meets Gaby Bussmann, the former 400 meter runner, and exchanges ideas with the mental trainer.
In the winter season, this is often only possible via video conference, but the frequency is then increased: “What were my problems while driving? Where did they come from? We’re trying to work through that and find methods of how things can get better in the future,” explains Laura Nolte. “Mental toughness is a very important tool in bobsleigh. Everything was fine with us after the crash last season, but I still had coaching every two weeks.”
That sounds exhausting, and it is – especially now that the running sessions in the Rote Erde are sometimes lonely affairs when your training partner Christopher Weber is absent. “Sometimes I ask myself why I’m doing this,” says Laura Nolte, “there are really many different roles in which I’m on the road. But I am always rewarded with experiences and successes. It’s an extraordinarily strenuous life, but it’s also an extraordinarily beautiful life.” And when, after three weeks of summer training in Dortmund, she travels to Frankfurt for ten days in a row and is allowed to train with Deborah Levi, any remaining doubts disappear again. It’s easier to sweat in a team.