"Check it off, attack again. Of course I'm sad, but I still have a chance here," said the extremely ambitious world champion after missing out on the medal she had firmly planned for in the Olympic track cycling competitions with sixth place in the keirin. Now the 25-year-old wants to make up in the sprint for what she missed out on in her favourite discipline on the wooden oval in Rio de Janeiro.
She didn't need any help to get started. "Anyone who knows her knows that she's ambitious. She can tick something like that off, we've already seen that at the World Championships," said national coach Detlef Uibel, preferring to leave his exceptional rider in peace. Vogel didn't have too much time to complain anyway, as the first sprints were already scheduled for Sunday.
With a medal in the keirin, possibly a gold, the next appearances would certainly have been easier. "Sometimes you're the dog, sometimes the tree, that's how it is at the Olympics," said Vogel, who learnt the fast pace of her sport within 24 hours. On Friday, she and Miriam Welte had won bronze in the team sprint with a lead of just 22 thousandths of a second. This time, a little carelessness was enough to lose everything.
Vogel has already experienced plenty of ups and downs in her still young years. Far more than her fast-paced sport has to offer. In 2009, her career seemed to be over before it had really taken off. After a serious training crash on 20 May 2009, she was in a coma for two days. A minibus took the right of way from the then 18-year-old. Vogel flew through the rear windscreen at 50 km/h, suffered numerous fractures to her thoracic vertebrae, hand, arm and jaw and lost almost all of her teeth. Countless operations and rehabilitation programmes followed, and the scars on her face are still visible today.
Vogel had asked for her racing bike while still in her hospital bed. And indeed, just ten months later, she was back at the start line at the World Championships. She is now a seven-time world champion. "I want to stop being the most successful female track cyclist of all time at some point," she says.
An individual Olympic medal would fit into her track record. A success would also do the German Cycling Federation (BDR) good. After the disappointments on the road and track, they only have one medal to their name. A target of four to six medals had been cautiously set, but there are not many chances left.
Joachim Eilers finished fifth in the men's sprint as the best German and missed out on the final, although expectations were not too high in this discipline anyway. Vogel in the sprint, Eilers in the keirin and Roger Kluge in the omnium are the final medal options. The BDR will have no chance in BMX. And in mountain biking, 44-year-old Sabine Spitz's start is questionable due to knee problems.
