Cologne – German gymnastics master Sarah Voss really likes what annoys normal citizens of Otto: rough hands with a thick cornea on the inner surfaces.
The reason is simple. The calluses protect against uneven bars and prevent blisters and bloody, open hands. The gymnasts (bars and rings) wear leather straps for protection. But that alone is not enough with the high friction loads. Due to the constant training on the equipment, thick calluses quickly form, which then recede in the unwanted corona break. What is undesirable at the World Championship tithing in the all-around competition of 2019, as the 20-year-old national gymnast reveals to the “Kolner Stadt-Anzeigerâ€.
“My hands are changing. They become softer and the cornea shrinks. Because of the lack of stress, but also because of the many handwashing, “says Voss, who has had to do without her daily training in the gymnastics center of the German Sport University Cologne for a good two weeks. The frequent washing makes her skin so dry that she now has to apply it regularly. Otherwise, it is on the index: “I don’t do it otherwise, at most the back of my hands. If I look at mine now – they are not normal hands yet, but I also have no real gymnast hands. ”
But that’s still the least of their problems. “We now know that we will have no competitions up to and including August and that Olympia 2021 starts on July 23. Everything else is still uncertain, “reports Voss. It is unclear when she will be able to return to the hall, whether there will be a training camp with the German team in summer, whether competitions will take place in autumn and the German championships, which have also been postponed to this year. She tries to maintain her fitness with a kind of “maintenance trainingâ€. But Voss is longing to “finally be able to use the devices againâ€. Then it’s quickly over with your soft hands.
