On the same wavelength: The swimmer Kirsten Bruhn and her trainer Phillip Semechin
Without their disability they would not be together, both say. They probably would not have dared. Too much speaks against it. And yet Kirsten Bruhn and Phillip Semechin have been a couple for four years. For this reason, she recently moved from her northern German idyll to Berlin - for his sake, although she does not really like city life. He does not allow himself to be tattooed anymore. For your sake. "Well," says the 44-year-old, and they both grin. No real compromise. No matter. For the 28-year-old she is the woman of his life anyway. "Knallerfrau" and "Strahlemann": That's what they call themselves when the other one is not there. Age difference, disability - these are all the thoughts of others, and they are of little interest to Kirsten Bruhn and Phillip Semechin.
A serious motorcycle crash on Kos 22 years ago has radically changed the life of Kirsten Bruhn. During a tour of the Greek island, she and her boyfriend were thrown out of a bend. He came away with a few harmless scratches. She could not get up and had to be flown to a hospital in Germany. Kirsten Bruhn feared and hoped. "The thought of paralysis was brief, but still far from reality." A few months and operations later, a doctor in Kiel summarized the whole truth in a single brutal sentence: "You can forget about walking, Mrs. Bruhn."
"Gold - You Can Do More Than You Think" tells the story of three top athletes: Henry Wanyoike, a blind marathoner from Kenya, Kurt Fearnley, an Australian racing wheelchair driver, and Kirsten Bruhn. In the run-up to the Paralympics in Sochi, ARD is showing the documentary on 6 March 2014 at 8.30 pm. Who missed the broadcast date: The movie is also available on DVD (via Amazon
, about 15 euros.
At that time the competitive athlete thought it was the end. "I wanted to close my eyes and never wake up." This phase has taken ten long years. In the end, swimming was their salvation, water their deliverance. Because in the pool she feels no pain. There she can move like everyone else - only better. Everyone in the family is swimming: father, mother and four siblings. Kirsten Bruhn is in her early thirties when she has recaptured her life, train by train, with untiring perseverance. To this day, she trains four to five hours every day. The success: so far three Paralympic gold medals and 65 world records. Fighting is also familiar to Phillip Semechin. He teaches nothing else. Sport is an opportunity, that is its mantra. The athletic man from Görlitz was himself a top athlete, swimmer, until knee problems ended his life's dream. He then studied sports, politics and history. But his visions of what the discipline of "swimming" is all about are still there - and he does a lot to make them a reality. Phillip Semechin trains the German disabled national team and analyzes the technique of the athletes, he also promotes disabled children and young people in Berlin, who actually have no chance: "Many of the children live with foster parents or in homes or have parents who can not care . "
His reward is often just a smile on the face of one of his pupils. "Phillip has an angelic patience while practicing, but not otherwise," reveals Kirsten Bruhn. While she's talking, kids come running every now and then to ask for an autograph. Here in the swimming pool she is the star. He thinks that's cool. Phillip Semechin could easily pass as a relative of the actor Jürgen Vogel: many crooked teeth, almost shaved hair and highly vivid eyes. No matter where you meet them, they almost always seem to be in a good mood. Whether early in the morning during training, in a bar late at night or for coffee in the afternoon, you usually hear Bruhn's contagious laugh from afar.
It's the competition day. Her parents came from her hometown Neumünster. Father Manfred is her personal trainer, her mother Heike her spiritual support. Manfred Bruhn stands at the edge of the pool, gives instructions, stops times, takes notes. Father and daughter understand each other without words. The parents accompany the daughter everywhere: Athens, London, Montreal.
Swimming pools are a world of their own. The heat, the smell of chlorine, everyone knows that. What not everyone knows is the atmosphere in a hall in which disabled people compete: in a wheelchair, blind, deaf, without arms or legs or both. They lie on a mat, wait until they are let into the water.And right here in this place you understand what Kirsten Bruhn means when she says, "In the water the world is all right again, everything becomes light at once." Nevertheless, she did not want to start as a disabled person for a long time, because she thought, "I'm not one of them."
Since Kirsten Bruhn moved to Berlin, she is no longer able to see her parents every day as in previous years. This is unusual for everyone. For the first time, the swimmer lives far from the safety of the family. "Ulkig at 44," she says laughing and strokes the blond hair from his face. "After the accident I was extremely dependent, that was and is the worst for me, this reliance on the help of others." In the meantime, she drives a car, loads her wheelchair herself into the trunk and goes to the driver's seat on supports. She buys alone. After things that are out of their reach on the shelf, she does not even attack. She has no desire for pity.
Runs on competition days always along the edge of the pool, you can hardly follow him, here is a comforting word, because a word of power, talks with family members. Counselor, coach, pastor - he is basically everything. And therefore also permanently on the way. It's hard to make an appointment with both of them: he works with his athletes almost 24 hours a day, and for them. She actually has an office job, insurance employees, holding motivational lectures in companies, in clinics, including the need for accident insurance.
On pity Kirsten Bruhn has no desire. The water is like a relief for her, there she feels no pain.
© Manuel KrugMeanwhile, we are sitting in a café near the indoor swimming pool. Kirsten Bruhn orders her second latte macchiato. He drinks cola and eats cake. She thwarted herself. She has size 36 and finds herself too fat. He thinks she has a bang for that. He pulls out the phone and proudly shows his girlfriend in tight black evening dress with overknee boots. "High heels are not working anymore," she says curtly.
It was not love at first sight. "Kirsten was one of many in the national team, I'm mostly sitting on the monitor looking at sequences, then telling athletes what they need to do to get better." She could accept that from him, because he explained so patiently.
They had known each other for two years when they went to eat together for the first time. What struck him right away: "Kirsten rolls around like a lucky kid, no matter how exhausting everything is, she never lets others feel it." Pause, cheeky side look. "Besides, when you get to know each other in bathing suits ... She has a super figure, beautiful skin, blond hair, blue eyes." Any questions? And she found him "incredibly personable and empathetic - he can adapt to any athlete with his or her particular disability, always has the peace and quiet," she enthuses. "By now I know that's not always the case, it explodes at home sometimes." That, in turn, does not happen to you. That's just not her style. "I found his upright walk great - very athletic." But, she assures, "I had nothing in mind at the beginning." A 16 year younger guy! "That is not how it works." Actually.
Then came the training camp, Turkey, October 2009. He just wanted to have fun, she had to train, two weeks later were European Championships in Reykjavík. "We danced every night," she says, explaining what dancing means to her: "I'm standing on the edge, holding on to the table and rocking in. Pause." I used to dance through the nights, today I do not do that "Only in her dreams is she still dancing." One evening, he just messed with his buddies, she looked at him - that was the moment. "What's that crazy guy, I thought and got him one Kiss given. And Phillip said, 'Finally! Will that work again? ' - That's it. "They've been together since then, his family liked Kirsten from the beginning, and if he did not, he would not care," and my parents love him, "she says.
"People always think the drama is a sitting life, but it's the pain, you're always in pain."
The two are sitting on a sofa, next to it is the wheelchair. She puts her legs up, but that too will be uncomfortable. "People always think the drama is a sitting life, but it's the pain, you're always in pain." Kirsten Bruhn has an "incomplete paralysis," which means she can move, stand, even for several hours, but it hurts like hell. He can hardly bear that, wants to stop her. But she says, "I need that for myself, for my head." If she has to go to the bathroom, she lays herself a catheter. She talks about it, too. There are no taboo subjects. Sex is not synonymous. "I can not say that I do not feel anything anymore, it's much more diffuse, even after 22 years I'm surprised what I can feel," says Kirsten Bruhn. He also talks about it in a very matter-of-fact way: "We can do everything the normal way, it's not much different from other couples." All this was buzzing around in her head. When she met Phillip Semechin, she had two separations behind her. "And then there was the 16-year age difference.I asked myself: What if he wants to have children? The accident has changed a lot, "she says." I enjoy what it's like now. Who knows how long it will last, hopefully for a long time. I love him, I do not worry about the rest. "Kirsten Bruhn keeps commanding herself:" Listen to your heart. "
Because of course it has dark days. Days when she cries. He can handle it. They hold each other. "I feel completely through Philip," she says, calling her "my port." And then, without glossing over what it was like when he fell in love with Kirsten Bruhn, he says, "Of course I've been thinking if this is possible at all, because I never thought about what it's like to be a woman But then we got to know each other better, and I did not care about the problems anymore, I've never felt like I've been lifted up like her. Children are still the topic. Biologically it would be possible, but complicated. She says, "I'm aunt seven times, being a mother is not on my agenda."
Phillip Semechin wants to marry, not necessarily. "I still assume that we do it," he says. "At some point," she says softly. "Really?" He is happy in disbelief. She smiles, plays on the golden ribbon that she wears around her right wrist. It says, "You can do more than you think." This is also the title of the award-winning documentary about Kirsten Bruhn and two other paralympic participants in London 2012. And it's nothing more and nothing less than the sentence of her life.
