{"id":24522,"date":"2024-10-16T23:42:56","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T23:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=24522"},"modified":"2024-10-16T23:42:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-16T23:42:57","slug":"a-promise-to-susann-my-journey-to-olympic-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=24522","title":{"rendered":"A Promise to Susann: My Journey to Olympic Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Promise to Susann: My Journey to Olympic Gold, I promised her an Olympic medal, and I kept my word. I never imagined my life would change because of a channel-surfing moment. It was 2004, and Susann, my wife, had seen me on TV while watching a weightlifting competition in Germany. At the time, I was competing for Austria. She tracked me down through sheer persistence, emailing Eurosport until they gave her my contact info&#8230;&#8230;. Continue.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"629\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-767-629x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24523\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-767-629x1024.png 629w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-767-184x300.png 184w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-767.png 665w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I never imagined my life would change because of a channel-surfing moment. It was 2004, and Susann, my wife, had seen me on TV while watching a weightlifting competition in Germany. At the time, I was competing for Austria. She tracked me down through sheer persistence, emailing Eurosport until they gave her my contact info. We finally met in Lower Austria, and it was love at first sight for both of us. We got married not long after, and I promised her that one day, I would win an Olympic medal just for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-768.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24524\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-768.png 1024w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-768-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-768-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-768-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, tragedy struck. In July 2007, Susann was involved in a car accident and passed away. It felt like my world had collapsed. I buried her in her wedding dress, and I nearly gave up everything\u2014including my career. But in the depths of my grief, I remembered the promise I made to her. That promise became my driving force, the reason I kept pushing forward when I thought I couldn\u2019t. I trained harder than ever and qualified to represent Germany at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-769.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24525\" srcset=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-769.png 1024w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-769-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-769-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/image-769-768x768.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>At the Games, things didn\u2019t go smoothly. I failed two out of three snatch attempts, and my chances for gold looked bleak. But I wasn\u2019t just competing for myself\u2014I was competing for Susann. With every bit of strength I had left, I lifted 258 kilograms in the clean and jerk, securing the gold medal. As I stood on the podium, listening to the German anthem, all I could think about was her. I had kept my promise. I had brought the Olympic medal home\u2014for Susann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/?p=24517\" title=\"\">also read&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Promise to Susann: My Journey to Olympic Gold, I promised her an Olympic medal, and I kept my word. I never imagined my life would change&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24523,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24522"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24526,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24522\/revisions\/24526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsperry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}