Jakob - Newsletter #17, The bumpy Road 2 Munich
Jakob Schubert has been European champion since last Thursday. A title that adds to the collection for which the 31-year-old athlete trains hard every day. This summer, not only the coronavirus forced him to take a break, but above all the skin on his hands temporarily brought him to his knees.
Jakob Schubert always wants to be at the top, to be the first if possible. At the European Climbing Championships in Munich, he did just that once again - he crowned himself the first winner of the new Olympic climbing format Boulder & Lead, thus also securing his first European title. "It was a perfect rehearsal on the road to Paris," said Schubert directly after the award ceremony at Munich's Königsplatz.
He shows why even the road to the European Championship was an extraordinary one in a video he has just released and looks back on a very special summer.
“For many years I’ve had this really weird problem with my skin. It’s almost like a disease that I have in only the hottest months, often around June and July. At the world cup in Innsbruck it was very bad again. My skin underneath the fingertips gets really, really dry and it feels like the sweat can’t get through. I could basically take the skin and pull it off. Underneath that, it’s very, very thin skin.
I was forced to take it easy and decided to skip the world cup in Villars because I wanted to train hard and get back in shape; but then unfortunately, I got infected with Covid. I was pretty sick and in bed for a few days. After more than a week I returned to the gym and had to invest a lot to get back in shape.
Unfortunately, I had to skip most of the world cups this summer due to these circumstances but the most important competition of the year, the European Championships in Munich, were always on my schedule.”
The skin is not yet perfect again and will require Jakob’s attention for a while.
Photocredit: KVÖ/Lanzanasto | Jakob Schubert