Speed ​​skating nude calendar: Without a cover in the hall

ESpeed ​​runners take their bikes with them when traveling, even if they fly to compete. This may be surprising if you thought that folding skates were all you needed to complete laps of the 400-meter oval. However, a potter also needs more than just a lump of clay, such as money for his studio. So there is a logical connection between ice oval and freight costs: This helps to understand why six athletes from the Erfurt speed skating team peeled off their skin-tight suits in front of the photo lens.

They’ve done it again: Like last year, the Erfurt ice cream professionals are selling a nude calendar: twelve brightly colored pages under the motto “Ice, Ice, Baby 2026”. They don’t like the word “naked calendar” because from their point of view it doesn’t apply to the matter. Firstly, it’s not about speeding, it’s about finances. In addition, Hendrik Dombek, Max Strübe, Stefan Emele, Felix Maly, Konstantin Götze and Sophie Warmuth, all members of the national team, take it in a decidedly humorous way when they show their, as they say, “chocolate ice cream side” together.

Like any high-performance sport, speed skating is not a cheap pleasure. Fascinating, but also financially demanding: the Erfurt calendar team thinks this description is quite accurate. “We largely cover the costs for training camps, sports equipment and sometimes competition trips ourselves,” report the athletes. The association pays for a lot of things, the club helps. But there remains a funding gap – for example when the training bike mentioned has to be transported to the World Cup overseas because the athletes need it to warm up during the competition. The bike suitcase is bulky luggage, explains Dombek, 28, which could easily add up to an extra 250 euros on a long-haul flight.

At first the athletes lacked courage, but then it turned into fun

The Erfurt sextet initially had the idea of ​​collecting money through crowdfunding. This method is becoming increasingly popular in sports outside of the million-dollar business of football: the figure skaters, who are also not big earners, asked for collective donations to purchase team jackets in 2001. The Erfurt speed skater Felix Maly then suggested the photo shoot to his colleagues. At first they lacked the courage, reports Dombek, but then it became a lot of fun.

Last year, the motto at the time was “Through the curve without a suit,” they raised around 3,500 euros from the calendar with the pictures by photographer Enya Aßmann. The money goes directly to the club, the Erfurt Ice Sports Club, which also organizes the sale. “We take the administrative work off the shoulders of the athletes,” says managing director Marian Thoms. Half of the athletes sent to the World Cup races this year are training in Erfurt. According to Thoms, the club can use the calendar money to cover some of the costs that the athletes have to bear, for example for a summer training camp.

A lot is added up for top athletes, even if they receive Bundeswehr pay and an additional 150 euros per month from Deutsche Sporthilfe: rent, maintenance, equipment. Athlete spokesman Dombek has just been appointed to the Sporthilfe supervisory board, so he knows what he is talking about: a pair of ice skates, he calculates, cost 1,500 to 2,000 euros, blades around 700 euros. He himself receives runners from FES, the institute for research and development of sports equipment, but many colleagues, he says, pay for themselves.

There is no denying that speed skating no longer moves the crowds like it once did. Since 2014, German athletes have not won any medals in the Olympic oval chase. Nevertheless, the skating professionals invest in their passion, and the nude calendar from Erfurt, which is also the stated intention, is intended to bring the sport closer to a larger audience in a cheerful way. Who knows that speed skaters travel with their bikes? Even!