Sport shooter Carina Wimmer is headed for the Olympic Games in Tokyo:

“If it wasn’t for Covid, I wouldn’t be going to the Olympics”

Have the past few weeks been an emotional roller coaster?

To stay motivated I had to convince myself that Tokyo would be happening and that I needed to train for it. For a long time it was uncertain whether the European Championships in Croatia would even take place. And I practically had to compete there to make it to the Olympics. But as an athlete I can’t just say: Let’s see whether this competition happens when the time comes. If I do, I’m dealing with all kinds of uncertainties while I’m training.

But then you managed to handle this uncertainty with a certain sense of optimism.

Well, a few things got moved around. In March 2020 I would have traveled to my first World Cup to earn qualification points. That would have been in India and of course it was canceled. That really sucked, to be honest. I had trained for that event for a long time. But soon afterwards I arrived at a point where I asked myself what I should do with the situation. I was able to do ‘dry training’ at home. And for strength and fitness work I generally went back to my parents’ place. But otherwise I couldn’t train anywhere. So I spent the summer working on my bachelor thesis in health sciences at TUM.

So you completely stopped training?

No, not really. My bachelor thesis had a huge impact on my life as an athlete. After I submitted it, I really threw myself into my training. My thesis was about how elite athletes were dealing with the pandemic. I interviewed a lot of Olympians from various disciplines.

So you actually benefited from Covid?

I also spent a lot of time exploring psychology, for example in relation to coping strategies. For me the postponement to 2021 was a massive win. If it wasn’t for Covid, I wouldn’t be going to the Olympics. I wanted to spend the year getting better and making improvements in my technique because the others were also limited in their ability to train. That was a major motivation for me to gain ground on the world’s top shooters.

When did you first realize that you might get to the Olympics one day?

This dream starts when you’re at the junior level. If you start competing internationally at that age, the dream becomes more realistic. And it really took shape after the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro: We were inspired by Monika Karsch’s euphoria when she won the silver medal with her sport pistol. At that point I was about to make the jump to seniors. So the plan was for us to watch how my performance improved over the next four years. And now Tokyo is about to start. That’s amazing.