Swimming: German record holder on a home visit in Hamburg

Hamburg. People who travel around the world for work often feel like they are citizens of the world. However, knowing where their roots are gives most people a sense of safety and security. In this regard, visit Rafael Miroslav this week Hamburg Turnerschaft from 1816 In their sports center in Sievekingdamm, which opened in 2019, is a private centre.

After all, the best swimming talent from Hamburg experienced his beginnings in the pool at the oldest gymnastics club in the world. “The HT 16 is a piece of home to me, it’s like family. Whenever I visit there, I meet people I know,” says the 21-year-old.

Swimming: the visiting record holder from America

In the summer of last year, the freestyle swimming specialist moved to Indiana University in Bloomington (USA), where he began studying management thanks to a sports scholarship. Since then he has not had time to visit his family in Hamburg. But now, having finished his season with the World Championships in Budapest (Hungary) and the German Championships in Berlin at the end of June, he finally had the opportunity to take a break for a few weeks.

The German 100m freestyle record holder seized this opportunity – at the beginning of April he was the first German to stay under the 48sec mark in Berlin at 47.92 seconds – to meet friends and family and visit his local club.

Miroslav the Great’s attachment to his homeland

The connection is still there, even if Miroslaw has always trained at the Olympic base in Dulsberg before moving to North America and thus hasn’t done his lengths in the HT 16 pool for at least ten years. His three younger siblings are members of the swimming division, which, along with the gymnastics and football division, is not only the oldest division of HT 16, but currently houses Hamburg’s strongest young swimmers. Therefore, Andreas Wolff, Managing Director of HT 16, is very pleased with the national relations of the current largest leading company out of about 5200 strong associations.

“It’s always good to have Rafael with us because it shows that he still feels part of our club,” he says. Rafael Miroslav is pleased to be a role model for young swimmers. “It’s important to me that some people take my ideal of what they can achieve,” he says.

After the 185cm player missed qualifying for the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo with a long shoulder injury, he is fully satisfied with the way it went last season. Although he missed the semi-finals at the World Championships over the 100- and 200-meter freestyle singles, he made it to the finals in his two relay matches – eventually finishing sixth with the male medley quartet and eighth with the mixed medley relay. . “I didn’t think things would go well this year. The German record in particular came very unexpectedly.

Rafael Miroslav will return to the United States next Monday, and rehearsals and lectures there will begin again in mid-August. His focus for 2023 is the World Cup in Fukuoka (Japan) in mid-July, where he wants to prepare for the 2024 Summer Games. “I want to be fully competitive in Paris, and that’s what I’m working towards,” he says. Amaze the world with your homeland in your heart – at HT 16, you will give all the support to your best talent for this.