The next Olympic medalist will resign

Ahoi, Tanja Frank. With the 32-year-old Viennese, one of the most dazzling personalities in Austrian sailing in the past few years leaves the big stage. “I can close the chapter with a good feeling,” she says. The decision to make the decision was not easy for her to make the decision even less. “But I can count myself lucky that I could make this decision like this. I have no injury, no mental problems or the like – it was not a must.” Just a few weeks after Paris Olympic champion Lukas Mähr, the sailing association has to cope with the next resignation.

Who doesn’t remember August 16, 2016? At that time, Frank won as a preview woman together with helmsman Thomas Zajac in Rio Olympia-Bronze In the Nacra-17 class. At that time, the duo redeemed the red-white-red sports nation. As a reminder: Austria had not brought a medal in London in 2012, in Rio there was a sail bronze the only medal. For Frank that was the absolute career highlight. “It was almost ten years ago, but I still think back very often.” It was more than a dream that had come true: “It was always my motivation in the years afterwards when it didn’t go so well.”

Frank, who completed a MBA study in sports, looks back without regrets: “I don’t regret anything – not even that I chose the hard way.” What does she mean? After Olympic bronze, she changed the boat, separated from Zajac. “At that time many thought I was stupid,” recalls Frank, who has an IQ of 137. Nobody understood why she took this step. “But that was important and right for me. I wanted to get back to the wheel and see if I could also make it to the Olympics as a helm.” She did it: At the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo she was at the start with Lorena in the 49erfx class, 2024 in Paris again in the Nacra-17 class alongside Lukas Haberl.

But why now the final line? “There are a few reasons. For me there were not so many options.” To pull through Olympic campaigns for twelve years at a time. The Viennese sits even longer in the boat. Already at the age of two and a half years she was able to control a boat of the optimist class – her mother was the owner of a sailing school at the time. Frank does not fear a kind of “pension shock”. “I will still be at the Neusiedlersee often. And if I want, I can always sail.” She is already looking forward to it: “You can enjoy the recreational sailing with friends.”

The army athlete already has ideas how things could go on professionally. “I want to stay connected to the sport. As a former top athlete, I can get myself well.” There are no concrete plans yet, she learned in her career but also “extremely much” for life afterwards.

Why Austria is so successful as an inland in sailing? Frank also has a conclusive theory. “We don’t have a sea, but a very good team. Because we don’t have a sea, you have to work more, even as a team.” She does not want to become a trainer in this team (at least now). “I don’t want to travel so much now. I want to enjoy and be at home now.” And maybe also found a family. Mast and sheet break!