Portrait

A success story in several acts

One could start here by enumerating all of Hanka Kupfernagels victories. One could start with the 5 world champion titles, refer to over 30 successes in German championships and chat about the 6 times she was honoured cyclist of the year. And one could continue this list for ever.

For one thing is sure: There aren’t many athletes on this planet whose success records are as imposing as the Thuringian’s. In January 2009 she won the German Cross Championship for the eighth time, from the beginning of this discipline in 2000 on she was always on the podium except for once in 2007. She is one of the best on the streets, too. Therefore Hanka Kupfernagel has lots of routine in stockpiling titles. A thesis, she can’t do anything with: “Victories are never routine”, she says. “Every success is very special and has its own story.” Many stories have gathered over the years.

The first chapter was written in the former GDR. Hanka Kupfernagel is a big talent, her education very broad. During summers she was training on the streets, in autumn on the track and over the winter she went cross-country. First, this is good for technique. And second, it’s lots of fun for the twelve year-old.

As a start, Hanka becomes a successful street cyclist. It was said that cyclo-cross wasn’t for women. An opinion, Hanka fully disagreed with. She was always going cross-country on her bike. Over the weekends she accompanied her brother to the races as an advisor while she was training with the men on weekdays – and she was eager to race herself. But no one ever let her. That changed in the end of the 90ies. In 2000 there finally was the first cyclo-cross world championship held for women. “I was dying to go,” Hanka Kupfernagel tells us. It was good for her but bad for her competition. For the German is strong. Too strong for her combatants. And ever since then she keeps winning year after year. If there was a 'Mrs. Allround' of cyclo sports, it would be Hanka Kupfernagel. At summer she’s leading the street, at winter the cross races.

In 2007 on the street, she can celebrate one of her greatest triumphs in front of her home spectators. She wins the solo time trial at the world championship in Stuttgart. Experts are thrilled, the public to a large degree uninterested. In those days, other topics are discussed, mainly doping. “It was quite sad,” she remembers, “I felt like a lotto winner who wouldn’t get his money.” But Hanka Kupfernagel will keep trying to hit the jackpot. 2011 there is the cross world championship in St. Wendel, 2012 are the Olympic Games in London. Hanka Kupfernagel says: “I have put a lot on my agenda.”

The competition won’t like to hear that.