Interview with Malaika Mihambo: "The biggest problem was that I had Long Covid"

Malaika Mihambo is the reigning Olympic and world champion, she won the silver medal at the home European Championships in August, and this year she can win gold at the World Championships for the third time in a row - but the long jumper rarely deals with that.

Interview with Malaika Mihambo: "The biggest problem was that I had Long Covid"

Malaika Mihambo is the reigning Olympic and world champion, she won the silver medal at the home European Championships in August, and this year she can win gold at the World Championships for the third time in a row - but the long jumper rarely deals with that. In an interview with ntv.de, the 28-year-old reveals how she motivates herself instead, what she does outside of athletics and why four weeks in Peru were also physically enriching. Mihambo also gives an insight into her health problems after the corona infection.

ntv.de: In the past few years, during the season break, you have often been out and about, travelled, hiked and tried out new sports such as cross-country skiing. How did you spend your non-training time after the challenging 2022 season?

Malaika Mihambo: Very exciting and very unusual: I was in Peru for a total of four weeks. I spent a week in the rainforest, got to know the Amazon and camped there for a week. After that I was in Machu Picchu, hiked the Inca Trail (around 45 kilometers long; editor's note) and then climbed another five-thousander. It was very eventful and very special. I was in nature a lot - and was able to learn a lot about nature, about culture, especially of course about the Inca culture.

Do you take inspiration from this for your sport, for the preparation? Or is such a journey intended more as a distance from life as a high-performance athlete, during which you don't give up thinking about long jumps?

During that time, I don't even think about my sporting life and the work that is due again for the new season. But for me it's always something that gets me further: because I'm not just broadening my horizons, I'm also looking at the world in a new way and can take something away from it.

What did you take with you from Peru?

Physically, I benefited a lot from this "altitude training" because I hiked so much at this absolute altitude. So I got back into the preparation very fit. When you camp at 4800 meters, you definitely notice that the body is working and that something is changing.

You are now back in training, in the preparatory phase, which is considered to be particularly strenuous and demanding. You said last summer that you didn't have to prove anything to anyone anymore. So what motivates you to struggle through the winter once more?

I haven't even thought about it that way. It sounds a bit like competitive sport is something to avoid if you don't have anything to prove to anyone. I don't feel like I have to prove anything to anyone, nor do I feel like I have to prove anything to myself.

So what is it that drives you to keep pushing your body to its limits?

For me, it's no longer my external motivation that says, 'I still have to win a title' or 'I have to achieve this or that', I've actually been away from that for a long time. For me it's about evolving as a person, working on myself every day, becoming a better person and athlete. But mostly it's always about people and how I can just grow and be the best version of myself.

Do you set yourself specific goals for this, such as perfecting the approach to the board or something similar?

That is different. These aspects of training in particular really have a plan that you then work your way along for months and that you simply know: This year, for example, the focus is more on the sprint, in another year more on the strength area. But I also meant that much more openly, namely how to be stable and resilient as a personality in your own life.

Resilience is a good keyword, which was required of you in the 2022 season. World Cup and home European Championships within just three weeks, with a corona infection in between, which also made itself felt with health problems afterwards.

Yes, that's right, it wasn't easy that I got infected with Corona at such an unfortunate point in time. The biggest problem was that I then had a form of Long Covid and that made it very difficult to reach your absolute physical potential. I started with a very big handicap and definitely made the best of it.

After successfully defending your title at the World Championships in the USA, you won silver at the European Championships in Munich despite the aftermath of the corona virus, but you had to receive medical treatment after the lap of honor in the Olympic Stadium. In your competition afterwards, at the ISTAF in Berlin, you missed several attempts.

I noticed that it was difficult to be able to play with the potential that was still there - and to have that looseness that you usually have when you can fully rely on your body.

In Berlin, after the competition, you said your lung function was still somewhat limited and that your "breathing efficiency was a bit below average". Among other things, with physiotherapy and a "breathing school" you wanted to restore full resilience. Did it work out?

I don't know exactly, but I think so. I really only had problems in the competition. You can't imagine that in everyday life I constantly had the feeling that I wasn't getting enough air, or that I was completely out of breath when walking up the stairs, it wasn't like that. That was really related to the competitive sports sector. After Munich I had another low and noticed it in everyday life, but after a week it was okay again. And when the competitions were over, I no longer noticed anything about the illness. I just assume that everything has sorted itself out again and that it will fit and then I will be back to normal in the first competitions.

So the time of stress control after Munich, i.e. with reduced training and omitted attempts, is over?

Yes, I assume that I can do six jumps again in competition without having any breathing problems.

So let's jump back to the training, you talked about prioritizing. Where is the current focus? Or is the goal now to bring everything together in competition?

Ideally, this is the case every year, of course, so that you try to bring everything together, that you also put the building blocks that you have been working on on the board. So that always resonates. We've put a lot of emphasis on speed again, we've put a focus on sprinting - and I'm noticing again that I feel very comfortable sprinting, that I'm faster again, as was the case in 2019 and 2020. The long jump simply depends on the speed. On the other hand, there is also a reserve in the maximum strength, so we want to work a little further this year to exhaust it.

Your trainer Ralf Weber, who looked after you for many years and then withdrew, was part of this "we" until 2020. After that you actually wanted to move to the USA, like Gina Lückenkemper shortly before, and train in Texas with nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis. Then came the pandemic, you temporarily switched to national coach Ulrich Knapp. Although the circumstances allow a move to the USA again, you have completely abandoned this idea. How did this decision come about?

Sometimes you just have to take life as it comes. Of course, you never know if it would have been better if you had done it differently. But I'm still happy and I think it was the right decision.

At least from the outside, it has become the complete alternative: Instead of going abroad, breaking out of the structures of the German Athletics Association, you stay with the national coach. What triggered this rethinking?

Because with Uli I have a basis that is simply very unusual. We get along very well as people and that's something I appreciate and want to keep because I know it's not everyday and you can't find that anywhere else for sure. So it's important to me to appreciate that, and I don't want to trade it for something I don't know. In Uli, I simply found a trainer who I feel comfortable with. And that still doesn't rule out stopping by the USA and doing a training camp there, for example.

This year you have the chance to become world long jump champion for the third time in a row after 2019 and 2022. Only the American Brittney Reese has done that before: in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Do such comparisons play a role for you?

I don't really deal with it at all, so I couldn't say who did what and how often. I just focus on doing my best, also because it doesn't do me any good if I know what others have already achieved or not. That doesn't help me to achieve my goals. That's why I always stay with myself, see how I can improve, how I can improve from jump to jump and make sure that I'm doing a lot of things right. If I do that and focus on it, I usually have success. Only in the second step do I see what that is enough for.

However, your successes are all the more important for the German Athletics Association because you have been one of the few guarantors for consistently good results on a global scale in recent years. After the miserable DLV performance at the World Cup, a reappraisal was announced, were you involved in it?

Of course, you have contacted the head national coach [Annett Stein, editor's note. Red.] entertained, just now in the training camp. Ultimately, however, there is also a lot that has to be regulated internally, and as an athlete you are also heard. Since last year there has also been much more active communication with the athletes, which certainly has advantages, because then it is of course easier to find out individually where there are things that are overlooked in the system or that at least run under the radar. That's definitely positive. But it's not a major part of my life right now to work through that.

Especially since you still have a life alongside competitive sports.

Exactly, I still have my studies and other things, so I'm already busy.

You are currently studying environmental sciences for a master's degree at a distance learning university. Is there a fixed distribution between studies and sport? Or does that change depending on the phase of the season?

I try to plan in such a way that I can get through my studies stress-free. At the same time, I also slowed down the pace a bit compared to the bachelor's degree, because I wanted to do my best again and of course that's not so easy with competitive sports as my main job. I plan everything so that I don't overstrain myself and so that I can concentrate on the sport and university fees don't put pressure on me at the peak of the season.

Planning is also important for the DLV, which likes to think in terms of Olympic cycles - the current one ends with the games in Paris in the summer of 2024. You could defend your gold medal from Tokyo there. Does your planning go beyond that or do you think from year to year?

Yes, usually. So of course I'll definitely continue until Paris and I think I'll continue for a bit after that as well. How long that is then, I would then see from year to year.

Torben Siemer spoke to Malaika Mihambo