Interview with Lucia Dörffel
TUM student competes in Olympic sport climbing
You qualified for the Olympics in June, congratulations! Those certainly weren't easy weeks.
Thank you and yes, the pressure has been pretty high recently. There were only four weeks between qualifying and the first competition in Paris.
Are you very excited now, just before you leave?
At the moment I only feel joy. The experience of competing at the Olympic Games is definitely unique. I think it will be much bigger than I can imagine. I think when I've packed my things and get on the train, there will be some excitement.
You are competing in the new combination of bouldering and lead. What exactly do the competitions look like?
In Tokyo, the climbers had to compete in all three disciplines of speed, bouldering and lead. Now speed and the other two disciplines have been separated. In bouldering, we each have five minutes to tackle four different boulders that we don't know beforehand. Everyone tries the boulders in 5-minute intervals. No one should have the advantage of learning something from the others. With the lead, on the other hand, we are shown the route in advance. We have six minutes to inspect it and one attempt to climb it.
You climb at world level and are studying at TUM, how do you manage to combine the two?
So far, training and studying have been easy to combine. I was able to study as normal for the first four semesters. The fact that a lot of things were offered online due to Covid was of course very convenient for me. In the past two semesters, the focus was on preparation. I attended fewer courses and I miss the exams because of the Olympics. But I want to catch up as much as possible after the summer.
How much time did your Olympic preparations take up?
I train five to six days a week, sometimes twice a day, up to 30 hours in total I would say.
After the Olympics, will you hopefully go on a well-deserved vacation?
No, not to be honest. I'll be at the European Championships in Switzerland at the end of August, after which I'll take part in one or two World Cups. The season is relatively long for us climbers over the summer. But my highlight is and remains the Olympics, of course.
- Lucia Dörffel is 24 and originally comes from Chemnitz. She made her first attempts at climbing as a child, with her parents in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains.
- The athlete has lived in Munich since 2020. She is in her sixth semester of a bachelor's degree in sports science at TUM School of Medicine and Health.
- The multiple German bouldering champion has been a member of the national squad since 2014/15. She earned her Olympic ticket in the Qualifier Series in Shanghai and Budapest.
- In Paris, 20 women and 20 men from all over the world will be competing in the sport climbing events, with the disciplines being speed and a combination of bouldering and lead. In lead climbing, the athletes have to climb a route and clip in every intermediate belay without putting any strain on the safety chain.
- Lucia has her first competition in bouldering on August 6, followed by lead on August 8. The final will take place on August 10.
- Lucia Dörffel on Instagram
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