Professional cyclist Clara Koppenburg: Successful battle against eating disorder, uncertain future in cycling

Only flying is more beautiful, they say. And for Clara Koppenburg, cycling felt like flying. At least that's how she remembers her most successful time. "I flew up the mountains," is how she puts it. It was the time when the talented cyclist from Lörrach in Baden became a high-flyer who was considered the strongest climbing specialist in German cycling at the time. It began in 2018 - visibly at the World Championships in Innsbruck, where she first played an offensive role in shaping the very mountainous women's road race and then finished as the best German in 18th place. A helper had become a leader, a captain - someone who was allowed to ride for her own result, who was visible.

Lighter means faster

That whetted her appetite for more. She became even more successful. At the start of the following season, in February 2019, she won the mountain top finish on the Xoret de Cati in the Spanish stage race Setmana Valenciana with a clear lead and later also won the overall classification. This was followed by Koppenburg's most successful year - with many top placings. At the age of 23, the cyclist had found the key to her success: her weight. The lighter she was, the faster and more successful she was. Now Koppenburg is 30, and she doesn't know what will happen next. The successes have faded. She has no prospect of a contract as a professional cyclist in 2026. "I won the most important battle - but sometimes it still feels like a defeat," she recently wrote on Instagram and made public what she had previously only spoken about with confidants and within her teams: her struggle with herself, her eating disorder, her fixation on cycling. She was successful, in a different sense. She now feels healthy again. She now looks at cycling differently - including as an expert on ARD broadcasts.

Far-reaching consequences for body and soul

The cyclist has long since realised that although she was successful, she was on the wrong path and the price for her success was too high. "The only thing that was important to me was being good at sport. I completely ignored everything else. I didn't care at all that I lost my period. I even thought I was an even better athlete because of it," she says of the Clara who was somehow no longer Clara. When she sees the pictures from her most successful period today, it still triggers bad feelings in her - it could have turned out worse: "It could have been that I would never have been able to start a family, could have destroyed all my social and family contacts," she emphasises. She now speaks publicly about her problems, her weight, which was far too low and therefore unhealthy, in the years with the best results. She wants to warn others. "I pushed my body to the limit. And I flew up the mountains. But I wasn't healthy. I wasn't happy. I wasn't myself," she wrote in her Instagram post. From a previous ideal weight of 53 kilograms (which would already be underweight for a normal woman), her weight dropped to 46 kilograms in racing form, and during private crises such as a serious accident involving her mother Kerstin, she slimmed down to 43 kilograms. At 1.70 metres tall. Being underweight like this is dangerous. It leads to a lack of nutrients. The hormone balance changes. The absence of menstruation in women is an early warning sign. Body and soul become susceptible to infections and stress. Bone density decreases - the risk of fractures increases.

Lots of exercise, little food

Koppenburg himself speaks of REDs (abbreviation for Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport), the technical term for the syndrome when athletes simply consume too little energy, i.e. food, in relation to their very high energy requirements, particularly as a result of intensive training. In many sports, weight is an important key to success: in sport climbing, ski jumping, uphill cycling. Despite warnings from her own father Andreas Gösele-Koppenburg, a sports doctor who has looked after the Swiss Olympic team and several professional teams: Clara Koppenburg trained hard and ate proportionately too little. She made sure to eat comparatively small portions at home at her parents' dining table, deliberately ate nothing during training and took all the exercise and physical exertion she could - she even cycled the 20 kilometres to the massage. And lost kilo after kilo. With noticeable consequences. The figures in the results lists were great for a while, but soon her condition was no longer. The young woman didn't have a period for six years. The athlete is reluctant to remember the consequences of her body's depletion: two pelvic fractures in two consecutive years (2021 and 2022) at the Giro d'Italia, many hospital and rehab stays, extreme sleep disorders, her parents' worries about their emaciated daughter, the critical looks and comments from her fellow racers, the struggle with her own doubts and fears - including not being able to have children.

Four years of fighting the eating disorder

For four years, from 2019 to 2022, Koppenburg was unable to find a way out of her crisis. Now she believes she has been successful, she has a kind of feel-good weight, she has her period again. She is on the path that she believes is the right one - but she doesn't know where it will lead. The discussions about the visibly greatly reduced weight of professional colleagues such as Tour de France winner Pauline Ferrand-Prévot recently put the issue on the global agenda in a way that was heard around the world. And encouraged Koppenburg to go public. She believes it was high time: "It's been like a shadow over our sport for years," said Koppenburg, who publicised the problem of unhealthy weight tuning. Also to raise awareness and warn young athletes. "It was simply important for me to get it off my chest," she says looking back on her post and emphasises how pleased she was at how much encouragement she received for her outing.

High number of unreported cases

Koppenburg is not alone with her problem. Insiders estimate that somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent of women in top-level cycling do not have a period - presumably due to a lack of energy or low energy availability. "This can be an early warning sign of a lack of energy, which can manifest itself in REDs," says Katharina Fischer, who works in a research group on women in competitive sport at the IAT in Leipzig and was herself a national coach for junior women's cycling. The 20-year-old Canadian Isabella Holmgren recently dominated the Tour de l'Avenir, the Tour de France for young women under 23. A rapid rise for the U23 world champion on the mountain bike. Her emaciated body was visible under the yellow jersey. Images that worry Koppenburg and remind her of her own appearance a few years ago. "It's problematic when an extremely thin athlete wins. These are not good role models," says Fischer, looking at photos of Holmgren. She emphasises that the problem exists equally for men. Albeit with different symptoms.

"I am very frustrated"

"It is important that we continue to raise awareness and remove taboos in this area, train specialist staff and officials, support experts and that all these measures lead to athletes recognising signals earlier and having the courage to speak openly about them," writes the Athletes Germany press office (independent representation of cadre athletes in Germany; editor's note) on request. Koppenburg has done a lot of this - you would think she has done everything right. "I'm very frustrated," says the athlete herself about her current situation. Her contract with Team Cofidis expires at the end of the year and her applications to other racing teams have been unsuccessful.

Not enough time in top-class sport

Clara Koppenburg has gone her own way, she has received praise because she now looks healthy again. But around her 30th birthday at the beginning of August, she wasn't flying up the mountains, but battling the fear of the time limit in the mountains at the Tour de France Femmes. "It feels like I'm travelling with 16 water bottles in my jersey" - this is how she describes the extra weight she is now carrying uphill. Her body still has a lot to deal with. When it came to new contracts recently, she received encouragement from her employer, which somehow didn't help her. "We're super proud of you, you're going the right way, keep it up. You need at least two to three years, but we don't have that time," she quotes from the talks. To summarise: She is facing unemployment as a professional cyclist. It sounds like a vicious circle.

She wants to prove it to herself and the scene

Clara Koppenburg is now looking for new challenges as an individualist and wants to try her hand at gravel competitions for the first time at the Sea Otter Festival in Girona and the Gravel Burn in South Africa. "I'm by no means finished with cycling, I love it too much for that," emphasises Koppenburg. What is her goal? "I want to prove to both myself and the entire cycling scene that I wasn't just good because I was so thin and am now bad because I have too much on my ribs or am normal. But because I work hard for it, have talent and am mentally strong enough." The battle continues.