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Franziska van Almsick (born April 5, 1978 in East Berlin, Germany) is a German swimmer. She won her first Olympic medals in 1992 at the Barcelona Olympic Games aged fourteen. Her career begun at the SC Dynamo Berlin.Over her career, Van Almsick earned ten career Olympic medals, none of them gold. She ended her career at the Athens Olympic Games in 2004. In 1993, she was named by Swimming World magazine as the Female World Swimmer of the Year. Her son Don Hugo was born on January 7, 2007.
Franziska Van Almsick grew up in Berlin, where she became one of the biggest and youngest swimming talents of the former GDR. In 1992, she was the youngest participant of the then reunited German team and sensationally won a silver and a bronze medal. In 1994, she won the 200 metres freestyle World Championships in Rome. At that time, she became one of Germany`s most popular athletes and celebreties. After several disappointing years, where she couldn't fulfil the public's expectations, she managed a very successful comeback with 5 titles at the 2002 European Championships in Berlin. Over 200 metres freestyle, she broke her own world record in 1:56,64 seconds. Unlike Steffi Graf, Franziska van Almsick never had a corner on success. Moments of triumph were often followed by bitter defeats. She would be exalted high - and at the very next moment be showered with envy and gloating. Similar to Boris Becker she has experienced extreme ups and downs, and this may be the main reason for people having such a persistent interest in her. As eventful as Franziska's career has been, as contradictory is she as a person: glamour girl and yet quite natural, "saucy brat" and yet a little shy, cheerful and yet a little melancholic, enterprising and yet somewhat retired, determined and yet often doubtful. Above all, she has kept being openhearted and sincere, never wearing a mask, always being true to herself. This has made her vulnerable, but it is also the reason why she is enjoying so much sympathy and solidarity. Franziska grew up in a quite normal protected family. Before the German reunification she lived in a cosy East Berlin appartment close to the wall, together with her father Bernd van Almsick, a civil engineer, her mother Jutta and her elder brother Sebastian. Her parents and her brother have always given her support and protection. Not too many fifteen-year-old girls would claim to have the "best family in the world". Her family, and later on also her boy friend Steffen Zesner, have always been the most important persons in her life. Until early in 1997, when Franziska moved into a condominium in a southern suburb of Berlin that had been built by her father, she stayed with her parents in the Treptow appartment even as a multimillionaire. Following her brother's example, Franziska started swimming about the age of five. It didn't take long until she outperformed him. Her outstanding talent was discovered and systematically promoted - a common practice in East Germany. She was sent to a training center and attended a youth sports college. Her father once gave her a sticker with the inscription "Barcelona 1992". When she read that she decided that she wanted to go there. Whenever Franziska aimed at a goal, she pursued it with devotion, even as a child. She never did things by halves. Consequently life became hard for the young school girl. She would be the first to leave home in the morning and the last to come back at night, with many hours of training and school in between. Her talent, her ambition, the good support she received, and her consistently hard work soon beared fruit: At the age of 11 she reached 9 first places at the East German "Spartakiade" 1989. Besides all that she also performed well at school - and she could certainly have been excellent under normal circumstances. The rise of Franziska van Almsick as a swimmer is inseparably linked to the name of Dieter Lindemann, who coached her from 1990 until shortly after the Olympic Games of 1996. His GDR past often exposed him to the cross-fire of criticism and eventually overwhelmed him inescapably in 1997. It is quite typical of Franziska that through all accusations she remained loyal to her coach, whom she owed a lot and who certainly was a kind of father-figure for her. The final breakthrough came at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona. When the cheerful fourteen-year-old from Berlin-Treptow missed olympic gold just by arm's length a new star was born. The triumph of the brisk teenager - she won another silver medal and two bronze medals at the same Olympics - unleashed a storm of enthusiasm in Germany that is only paralleled by seventeen-year-old Boris Becker's sensational victory at Wimbledon. Franzi - this pet name was soon in everybody's mouth - became the nation's darling. Her popularity went across all social boundaries like young and old or East and West. An important factor was that she was born in East Germany, being too young to be blamed for what happened under the communistic regime. Franziska van Almsick can be considered to be one of the first all-German sport stars. Suddenly in the focus of public interest, Franziska needed a professional manager. Her parents engaged Werner Köster, a former sport journalist from Hamburg, which turned out to be a clever decision. Köster showed high sensitivity in guiding the inexperienced teenager through the media jungle. He negotiated several sponsoring contracts that turned Franziska into a millionaire, yet always leaving her enough time for school and training. A maximum of profit was achieved by a minimum of engagement. This job has certainly been made easier by the fact that media representatives and interested sponsors were virtually standing in line after the Barcelona Games. The Franzi euphory could not be explained by her athletic achievements alone. The fact that she had reached that stage at the age of only fourteen definitely contributed to her fame, but even more important was her refreshing, spontaneous nature that came across wherever she appeared in public. Since she also looked good, she represented an ideal object of identification - and an ideal medium for the advertising industry. All at once Franzi was nearly omnipresent. She was passed from one TV show to the next. She constantly gave interviews, filled headlines, garnished title pages and advertising pillars. Ministers and movie stars enjoyed to show themselves with her, star photographers desired her as a model. Moreover Franziska was heaped with honors and prizes. She won several awards of TV stations and magazines, and she was repeatedly elected Female Athlete of the Year. In spite of Franziska's above-mentioned virtues, her star would soon have set again if her success had been a singular event. But that was by no means the case. As a matter of fact, in the sequel she won almost everything that could be won. From the European Junior Championships in Leeds in 1992 she returned with as many as 6 gold medals. The gold rush was carried on via Espoo, Peking, Shanghai, Gelsenkirchen and Sheffield. The outcome of the European Championships 1993: 6 gold medals, one silver medal. The athletic summit was reached at Rome in September 1994. Actually Franziska had already missed the finals in her favorite discipline, 200m freestyle, due to a tactical mistake in the prelims. But then Dagmar Hase renounced in favor of Franziska. Franziska's return was unparalleled: she became World Champion and set up a new world record that has not been broken until 2002 - by herself. Now how does a teen-age girl cope with so much honor, success and admiration? In Franziska's case this may be answered by the following quote: "I am still the same old Franzi. If I should ever change, please let me know. Then I will have to think about ways to avoid that." She did change after all. Franzi turned into Franziska, and she started to take seriously what used to be just fun. Admiration turned into envy. Painful experiences lay ahead of her: open hostility, athletic failure, personal doubts, illness and a serious accident. The tide had started to turn since the European Championships in Vienna 1995. The competition turned out anything but optimal for Franziska. To everybody's surprise she missed the 200m freestyle finals. All of a sudden she was publicly reproached. Accusations could be heard that she did not have a clear mind for her sports and that she had to reflect upon her approach to life. Suddenly it all became too much for her. She was sick of always having to be the superstar and always having to smile. Pretty soon she was to experience for the first time how it feels to be dragged through the mud by the media that had praised her to the skies just a moment ago. In an interview with a newspaper she stated that she concerned herself with German history. A remark about Adolf Hitler and the second World War was twisted and separated from its context, and at once she became the target of a press campaign picturing her as a Nazi supporter, which hurted her badly and deeply shook her confidence. Even in her private life it didn't go smoothly any more. During their common vacation following the European Championships, Franziska's boy friend Steffen Zesner, also a successful swimmer, became sick and almost died. At the end of October Franziska herself was seized by an influenza virus and lost important training time. The short course World Championships at Rio de Janeiro in November/December 1995 turned out to be a disaster. After being disqualified for a false start in the 100m freestyle finals Franziska cancelled her start over 200m, losing the favor of many of the passionate Brazilians. She was accused that she had only used the World Championships as a short holiday trip to flee the European winter. Tears were running. Franziska's attitude towards the reporters that were constantly besieging her started to change. She began to hide, lost her famous smile, became more and more gloomy, oversensitive and suspicious. Suddenly she had the feeling that everybody intended to do harm to her. The pre-olympic season could not have started worse. In December Franziska decided to suspend school up to the Olympic Games, in order to be able to fully concentrate on the big event that she had projected to be the zenith of her career. Instead, she suffered from one grippal infection after the other during that winter. The German Championships, including the trials for the olympics, took place at Braunschweig in May 1996. They turned out to be the poorest German Championships for Franziska since 1990. She had planned to enter not only for the 100m and 200m events, but also for the 400m freestyle, and she had worked particularly hard for it. The 400m ended in a debacle, so did the 100m. Even harder to take than the defeat itself was the malicious joy Franziska suddenly had to face. The spectators applauded because she was losing. They gloated over the defeated favorite. Franziska's beloved 200m freestyle were her last chance for a start in the singles at Atlanta. She struck out and won in world's best time 1996. Once again she had achieved an impressive result after a great disappointment, confirming to be really an exceptional athlete. July 1996. For four years Franziska had worked towards that goal: The Olypic Games at Atlanta. The eighteen-year-old set out to make true what the fourteen-year-old at Barcelona had missed so narrowly: the dream of olympic gold. Climax and finale of a career that had started out as a fairy-tale and after all had become a burden. After Atlanta she wanted to pause with top-performance sports in order to find her way into the future. A gold medal as a crown for the still uncrowned German swimming queen, that was the plan. An olympic victory, however, cannot be planned. Franziska knew that better than anybody else, therefore she tried to lower the expectations during all her interviews. In vain: press and television agreed upon the conviction that "Goldfish Franzi" was going to get gold. So it happened what probably had to happen. She carried the high expectations, especially those from herself, like a heavy load up to the starting-block. This was no longer the daring little girl from Barcelona who had nothing to lose and so much to win. There was only one thing to win and an awful lot to lose. On her way through the hall crowded with 15000 frantic spectators, she knew already that she had lost. "When I plunged into the water I was already finished. I would have liked best to stay on the block and not to swim at all." 1:58.57 minutes later it was all over. Second place, 41 hundredths of a second behind Claudia Poll of Costa Rica, but almost two full seconds behind her own world record. Claudia Poll was beatable that night at the Georgia Tech Aquatic Center. Franziska van Almsick had been defeated by herself. "I had simply wanted too much, I had aimed too high. I think that's why I failed." She had been so close to making her greatest dream come true, but it just wasn't to be. One thing however was immediately clear to her when she glanced at the score-board: "This is not the way I want to quit." Besides this silver medal that was really a lost gold medal, Franziska won two more medals with freestyle relays: bronze over 4x100m and silver over 4x200m. It was an irony of fate that over the 200m distance Franziska was faster than Claudia Poll had been in the single finals. The newspapers differed in their view of Franziska's 'failure' at Atlanta. Some of them showed understanding for her disappointment and tried to comfort her, while others again gloated over her and reproached her with her high income. After the Atlanta Games Franziska carried out her previously announced plan to pause for several months. For the first time in many years she was able to deal with other occupations than swimming. She tried out various other sports, and she just enjoyed life. She didn't miss the swimming-pool for a single second. In November 1996 she announced to the relief of her fans that she had decided to carry on her swimming career and to fully devote herself to the goal to win olympic gold at Sydney. In November 1996, when Franziska announced her new long-term goal to fulfill her dream of olympic gold at Sydney, she seemed to be as highly motivated as hardly ever before. But her re-engagement turned out to be much more difficult than she had expected. Already a few weeks later she had to face the fact that the twofold strain of school and training was more than she could handle. She realized that she had to make a decision. It was better to do just one thing with full strength than two things halfheartedly. She decided in favor of her sport. Her graduation could be postponed, but the other way round would have been impossible. At about the same time when Franziska had made up her mind to quit school she came to another important decision. After the long swimming pause it was like a new beginning for her, so it made sense to look for a new coach who would be able to give her a fresh impetus. After almost seven years she parted with Dieter Lindemann and engaged Gerd Eßer, who had formerly coached her boy friend Steffen Zesner. Personally Gerd Eßer was about the opposite of Dieter Lindmann who represented the authoritarian GDR training methodology. For Franziska Gerd Eßer is someone with whom she can talk about her problems. The relationship is between adults of equal status. Franziska was back in the water, but it was not the same as before. She didn't enjoy it any more and wasn't really motivated. Perhaps she had only talked herself into the decision to carry on. During the long break she had learned to reflect on her life. She was in search of herself and had not yet found herself. One might speculate what would have become of Franziska if nothing had happened. Perhaps she would have descended into mediocrity and eventually have given up. However, it is useless to think about these possibilities, for something did happen. In May 1997 Franziska had a serious accident with her mother's motor-cycle. It was not her fault. The result was a threefold fracture and a rupture of all sinews and ligaments of her left hand. The consequences: she had to stop her training activities for 14 weeks and could neither participate in the German Championships at Munich in July nor in the European Championships at Seville in August. For the first time in her life Franziska was in the situation that she wasn't allowed to get into the water even if she wanted to. She used the time to think about what really mattered to her, and she realized how much she missed her swimming. The pleasure in her sport that had been constantly fading now came back to her. She could hardly await to resume her training. For two to three hours each day she strengthened her legs and her condition. Then she was allowed to carefully resume swimming, with pain in her hand, wearing a cuff around her left wrist. In retrospect Franziska is in some sense even thankful for the experience of the accident. She has changed a lot, has become more mature, has learned to distinguish between important and less important things. She feels like a completely new person and has gained more self-confidence. She is ready to take her chance and go up to her own limits one more time. She believes that she has not yet exhausted her full potential. She wants to reach her own world record and swim faster than ever before. She still has a long way to go up to this goal. After 14 weeks without training and 16 months without any serious competition one cannot expect a miracle. It is a new experience for Franziska to see her competitors in front of her instead of behind her. She has accepted the challenge. Since the German trials for the World Championships at Regensburg in November 1997 Franziska is back in the fight for times and medals. At the World Championships at Perth she only took part in relay competitions. The time was just too short for her to get in sufficient shape to even consider to defend her title as world champion. Franziska's goal for Perth was to catch up with the other world-class swimmers. The result was very encouraging: she started in two races and won one silver and one gold medal. At the German Championships in Hamburg in June 1998 Franziska finally closed up with the top again and won three gold medals. At the Goodwill Games in New York she showed that she is now ready again to compete internationally. At the German Championships 1999 she experienced a bitter set-back. For the third time in her career she missed the finals of an important competition due to a mental blackout. As a consequence she failed to qualify for the European Championships 1999 at Istanbul in her favorite discipline 200 m freestyle. The gold medal with the relay - like in Perth - was not much more than a consolation prize, but it silenced those critics who were questioning her international competitiveness. The long-term goal however remained Sydney 2000. At the German Trials 2000 in her home town Berlin she gained her ticket with a respectable performance. An olympic victory had always been Franziska's greatest dream - the only great goal that she had never reached in her athletic life. Sydney was her third chance. This time she was not considered as a favorite in her discipline but her increasing performance before Sydney looked promising. In particular the freestyle relays gave rise to great expectations. But once more all hopes should be disappointed. The entire olympic swimming competitions turned into a Waterloo for the German team. Three bronze medals - men and women combined - that was all. The series of failures also seized Franziska. It began with an unfortunate 4th place in the 4x100m relay. Then came the nail-biting 200m freestyle. Would Franziska keep calm this time? The nightmare came true. She passed the prelims, but in the semi-final it happened again: she missed the final with the disastrous time of 2:00.26. The malicious press echo in Germany only made it worse. The end of her career was announced although she had never talked about it. One yellow press paper went too far with its insulting headlines. Thousands of readers protested, many unsubscribed. The further course of events at Sydney didn't turn out much more successful. After a disastrous failure in the 200m butterfly event the 4x200m freestyle relay was the last great chance for Franziska to gain a medal. It wasn't gold as some had hoped for, but at least the 4 girls won one of the 3 German bronze medals. Like in Atlanta four years before, Franziska was much better in the relay than she had been in the singles. The last event - 4x100m medley - concluded the swimming competitions as they had begun: with a 4th place. The public had no idea about it and Franziska herself wasn't fully aware of it either: in the darkest hour of her swimming career something new and exciting entered her life, something that soon was to make her very happy. She met Stefan Kretzschmar, "enfant terrible" of the national handball team, a fellow-sufferer who had also failed at an all-deciding moment. They understood each other immediately. They returned to Germany and Franziska interrupted her swimming activities for several weeks - like she did four years ago - in order to think about her future. Then "it" happened: the German sports nation welcomed a new dream couple. Two months after the Sydney debacle - inspired by her new love - Franziska decided to continue her swimming career with new heart. "I want to demonstrate that I am able to do better than I did in Sydney. The fire in me that I had expected to go out if I had reached my goals at Sydney is still burning." Once more Franziskas ambitious plans were thwarted by health problems. The post-olympic season 1997 had been ruined by a traffic accident, the post-olympic season 2001 was spoiled by a slipped disc. Franziska spent most of the spring and summer months with doctors and physiotherapists and couldn't even think of participating in the World Championships at Fukuoka (Japan). In July she had restored her health and resumed her training. She decided to be trained with a team led by her first coach Norbert Warnatzsch. The new coach, the ambitious training group (all men except Franziska) and the harmonic private life created a wind of change. Step by step she recovered the performance of the early years of her career. At the German Shortcourse Championships at Rostock in November 2001 she reached the best results in years. National coach Ralf Beckmann: "It seems to prove true that she enjoys swimming again." The remainder of the winter season 2001/02 confirmed her increasing performance. The moment of truth came in May 2002. The German Nationals at Warendorf were the only chance to qualify for the European Championships 2002 in Franziska's home town Berlin. Franziska won all three events, and with 1:57.74 in the 200 freestyle she did not only swim a world's best time but also the third fastest time of her career. Only twice in her life she had been faster: in the B Final of the European Championships 1995 (after missing the A Final), and in her world record race of 1994. "I had a feeling that it's my turn again", she said after her first gold medal at Warendorf. In her home game from July 25 through August 4 she had the chance to prove it. European Championships in Berlin! The 4 x 100 m freestyle relay started off. At the Olympic Games 2000 the disappointing performance of this relay formed the prelude to the German debacle, but this time everything turned out well from the start. The morale in the German team, led by Ralf Beckmann, was characterized by mutual respect and a strong team spirit - and the results were also encouraging! The first relay took gold in world record time (3:36.00). Unleashed by this success, the 4 x 200 m relay also won - gold number two. In the next event, 100 freestyle, Franziska was by no means favorite, but during these days of Berlin everything she touched turned into gold. She took her third gold medal and tied the German record. If you have followed Franziska's career, you know that there is one event to which she has always been committed heart and soul: 200 freestyle. Over her world record distance she has experienced her greatest victories but also her greatest defeats. On the decisive day she was feeling sick and would have liked to steal away. When her name was announced, the crowds in the swimming hall were going wild, but during the few steps up to the starting block Franziska entered another world. The frenetic fans, her competitors - she didn't realize them any more. She was highly concentrated and completely calm, and she knew from the start that everything would be fine. She immediately took the lead and stayed inside her old world record during the entire race. 1:56.64: world record! When the result was displayed, the storm of enthusiasm in the hall became deafening. Franziska climbed out of the pool with tears in her eyes and fell to her knees. The huge burden of seven difficult years dropped from her shoulders. She had done it, proving wrong all skeptics who hadn't believed in her comeback. The fans in the hall were seized by Franziska's emotions - many were moved to tears during the presentation ceremony. For Franziska the 200 m freestyle were the highlight but not the end of the European Championships - and not yet the last gold medal. The medley relay also won the title, improving Franziska's personal score to a total of 5 gold medals in 5 events, with two world records. Franziska's triumph after the long unsuccessful period had many causes. Her new coach Norbert Warnatzsch managed to arouse her ambition of the early years, her training group motivated her when she was worn-out, and her relationship with handball hero Stefan Kretzschmar created a harmonic and happy private life. There were many more puzzle pieces that suddenly came together. Right after the European Championships she sat down and wrote a letter of thanks, naming many people who had supported her on her way back to the top (you find it in the German section of this site). Despite the support from many others outside the pool - in the water she had always been on her own. She finally managed to get her act together and to reap the rewards of her own labor. In retrospective the defeats have also been important steps in her life: "I wouldn't be standing here today if those dreadful years in between hadn't happened." Franziska's impressive comeback was widely acknowledged. For the second time she won the important media award "Bambi", the US magazine "Swimming World" named her Europe's female swimmer of the year, and Germany's sports journalists elected her "sportswoman of the year" for the third time in her career. Moreover she was nominated for the famous Laureus Awards in the category "comeback of the year". After the European Championships Franziska left the stage for a couple of weeks in order to think about her future. Swimming on was only one of several options which she had to consider carefully. Many people encouraged her to continue her swimming career up to the 2004 Olympics in Athens, but she preferred to listen to her inner voice. What was stronger, the satisfaction with her unsurpassable achievements or the desire to make her old dream of an olympic victory finally come true? She came to the conclusion that her work was still unfinished. In September 2002 she announced that she wanted to strive for one last athletic goal: Athens 2004. On her way to Athens she will judge all events by only one criterion: does it help her to reach her goal? This approach lead her to the decision to skip the World Championships 2003 at Barcelona since she had not reached last year's level after an extended training pause due to illness. In one respect the 25 year-old Franziska isn't much different from the 12 year-old Franzi: if she says she wants to compete at the Olympic Games, she is very serious about it. ~ Stefan Peters. |
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