(September 13, 2023) – For our sixth athlete profile of 2023 (and the 44th in the “Getting to Know…” series) we catch up with Germany’s Georg Fleischhauer. Georg is a relative newcomer to the World Cup circuit, with one season under his belt at the top circuit while sliding on the European Cup circuit since November of 2019. In that one season, though, he pushed Johannes Lochner to five two-man World Cup gold medals and the 2023 two-man World Championship title in St. Moritz. Across all tours, Fleischhauer has 30 starts on the back of a sled, with 13 of them resulting in a gold medal and 21 resulting in a podium finish.
Slider: Georg Fleischhauer
Team: German Bobsled
Home town: Potsdam, Germany
Home track: Altenberg
We’ll start, as we always do, with this: Which track on tour is your favorite, and why?
I have a few. The first one, especially after last season, is St. Moritz. Of course because of the success and great time we had there, and because of the nature of the track. As the only natural ice track it just feels different. And Switzerland in general, as a track athlete when I was racing in Switzerland I was always feeling good and enjoying myself there. And now in the winter it’s a different season, but not a different feeling.
My second one is Whistler. It’s a really nice track and always has nice ice. I have a lot of respect for it when I was there for the first time. When we started…the beginning of my two-man history with Hansie (Lochner) we had a crash in our first run together in training. It wasn’t as tough as I thought it would be because the ice is really nice but it’s still intense with the speed through 50/50. But I really like it there.
The third one is Altenberg, because it’s the first track I’d ever slid on. I grew up in Dresden, right next to it, so it’s really special to me. My family comes out, and the ice is really nice, too. I like the pressure…it’s a tough track.
For you guys, winning at Altenberg is a huge deal.
Yes! It was really nice last year. Of course Francesco (Friedrich) was a little bit handicapped at the start. But he made a lot of mistakes on the track, too, and Hansie was almost perfect all the way down. It was really great!
During your sliding sport travels, where has been your favorite place to visit?
Last year before Lake Placid’s World Cup race we went to New York City and spent two days there. We did a lot of things…we did the bicycles through Central Park, we went up the Empire State Building. We ate a lot of really nice things, it was really a lot! It was during Christmastime and Rockafeller Center had the big tree…we didn’t do the ice skating there, it was too late to sign up for that, but it was really nice in general.
This season I hope we’ll have some time before our first World Cup (in Yanqing) to visit Beijing. When we were there in 2021 during the International Training Weeks it was in the middle of COVID and we couldn’t do anything. So maybe we’ll have some time to visit there.
We went to the Great Wall, but just in a bus. We went into the parking lot, and got to look out the window and look at it for maybe two minutes…we couldn’t even put down the windows…then we left. It was crazy! So maybe this year we’ll have some more time.
When the sliding season is over everyone takes a month or so off. What do you do with your free time? Do you go on any vacations?
For the coming year I’d like to maybe do some beach and sun…but maybe some skiing too if it’s still possible. We’ll have to see, it’ll be so late with the end of March.
But I like to visit family and friends. I work a little bit more to get some more hours. But we don’t have too much of a break, I think last year it was two or three weeks then we got into it in March with training. But during the preparation we take one or two times a week to have a little break and we can go on a small vacation. So some little breaks in between but not long periods of not training in between.
Most everyone comes to bobsled from somewhere else, what did you do before sliding?
At an age of 22 I was doing track and field for over 20 years, especially the hurdles. In my youth I did mostly the 110 meter hurdles. Then after 21 years I tried the 400 hurdles and had my greater successes there. In 2011 I participated in the World Championships in Daegu (South Korea). I finished in sixth place in the 2012 European Championships in Helsinki.
Then when I began my bobsleigh career I went back to focusing on the short sprint distances again. In 2021 I did all of my personal bests at 60 meters with and without hurdles, 100 meters, 110 meter hurdles, 200 meters…all PBs.
Then 2022 was my first summer without a track competition since I was maybe nine years old. It was pretty hard for me, but I thought if it was going to pay off in the winter it was going to be worth it. And if I would have known how the winter was going to go, I would have said “Oh, this is fine for me, it’s good!”
What made you go to the 400 from the shorter distances?
I just wasn’t very satisfied with my results. My former coach was more of a 400 meter coach and she always told me I should try the 400 because of my longer stride and I’d always say no, it’s too much for me. It’s too much and I don’t want to do it. But I was so disappointed with my results I said “Fine, I’ll try it, if I’ll be more successful I’ll try it”. And then that next summer I was the national champion and went to World Championships.
But that wasn’t really my passion. The results didn’t really come anymore, and it was hard to motivate myself to do it because it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. And now with the shorter distances, and bobsleigh, I feel like I’m really more made for this. Because with the 400 meter I was always too heavy…like 95 kg (209 lbs)…and 7% bodyfat I couldn’t lose anymore weight. So I was still very heavy, and the muscles have to get oxygen, and it just isn’t so perfect. But it worked out for a few years, but now everything feels really good with my body. Everything I’m doing now, with training…short sprints, jumps, fast things…it feels really good!
During your pre-race routine, do you listen to music? If so, what do you listen to?
I do! Mostly to get motivated. Sometimes it just depends on my mood. I think last season it was mostly Rammstein…sometimes some different mixes of electronic music. Nothing specific though…but I don’t know what it will be next year. It changes!
Is that something you did before track events as well? Or was that a different routine?
It’s similar. Especially with the short sprint events…when I was running the 400 I had less aggressive music. Now I have to really push myself to have these five, six, seven seconds in full power. With the 400 I had to really pace myself, you couldn’t just go out from the beginning! So it was a little bit slower and more relaxing music to get an easy rhythm.
After braking for most of the German Europe Cup teams (Oelsner, Buchmüller, and Illmann) you spent this season sliding with Johannes Lochner. How did you wind up on his team this season?
Hansie had some guys injured last year and knew he needed someone. He was trying to decide who to take after the national push championships. After the national selection for the World Cup, the fastest guy on the team who wasn’t participating on the World Cup already was the guy he was going to be taking. And since Richard (Oelsner) was finishing his season because of health reasons, I was free. And because I was the fastest in testing he took me.
I slid with him once before in China during the test event because there was an injury I was in the second heat of the four man race. It was a really short preparation for me but we were really fast, next to Francesco really.
So Hansie saw that we already worked well together so it was a good choice for him. I really like him a lot, and the chemistry we have together is really, really good. We are similar with our attitudes, but he might be a little more relaxed with some things, but the atmosphere with the team as a whole is really good. We have a lot of fun until the moment comes when we have to perform, then we’re there and fully focused and professional, then we finish and can have fun again.
I think it’s the perfect mixture, it’s worked really well. I’m glad he’s continuing sliding!
There was a concern that he would be done after St. Moritz!
He really gives a lot to the sport. A lot of fun things…like the thing with the Christmas stuff, bringing the letters down like Santa Claus. And sometimes it’s annoying because everybody asks him if he’s going to do things, and he’s like “oh! They want me to do this and that!” But he really has a lot of fun with it.
I thought at the beginning of the season he said he wanted to retire, and I finally made the step to a World Cup team, and I made it a mission to make him not to retire! I’m glad he’s sticking around and I’m curious to see how next season goes!
What is your day like as a high-caliber athlete?
right now in the summer, I get up at 7:30 and then go eat so I have everything digested before training. Then check emails and my schedule for the day to see if I have meetings or something. Then get ready for training, and that goes from 9:30 AM to around noon. Afterwards either time with the physio, or maybe getting lunch somewhere. Then shower and then I start work.
I’m working as a consultant for about 25 hours a week. I start that at around 2:00 PM for four or five hours until around 7:00 or 8:00 PM, then I do some relaxing either watching TV, reading book or video games or something. Then I’m in bed around 11:00 PM, and that’s a pretty normal day. Sometimes I’ll meet friends in the evening or something else, but that’s a normal day for me.
What kind of consulting are you doing?
We do consulting in the energy sector, especially with network operations of the gas and electricity grid. It’s completely regulated in Germany and there’s special regulations. They have to do a lot of stuff and often don’t have the resources so we support them. And of course it’s not boring, because of things going on with the transition to renewable energies and the gas problem with Russia and that whole situation.
Do you have any pets?
Not at the moment. I live alone and don’t have the time. I think you really have to have the time to take care of them, especially when you’re away all winter. But later, definitely. My family always had cats, so maybe a cat or dog or maybe both later on. But at the moment I don’t.
Do you have a least-favorite sliding sport memory you can think of?
The worst was my first crash in Winterberg in 2019 with Max Illman. It was maybe after two months of sliding, it was a really long training session and a rainy and cold day on the Europe Cup. A lot of sleds were crashing, and it was our third run. Nobody really wanted to slide anymore at that point, but we had to do that after three hours of training. It didn’t go well at all. We went over after Corner 9 and I landed on my shoulder and had a really big burn on my shoulder, too! So I have that memory forever…mine isn’t so bad, but you’ll have that forever. It took almost three months to heal, and I was doing competitions all that time and I thought if I landed on that shoulder again that would be it!
What has been your very favorite sliding sport memory?
It really has to be the St. Moritz race last year. The four runs…except maybe the fourth run that was a little bumpy after Horse Shoe. I was thinking “What’s going on here?!” but the rest was just so perfect. The whole race…we had really high expectations already due to our previous wins in World Cup even though we’d only had our first race a little more than a month before. But we’d won three races in a row and of course wanted to win the World Championship. That we could achieve that was just so good.
Talking about after Horse Shoe…as a brakeman are you surprised where your position is based on how the ride down the track felt?
I knew we had about .7 before…and on that final run it went down to .49 at the finish…so I knew we had a good margin going into the last run. So I hoped it would be okay in the end…as long as Hansie didn’t crash the sled, because I was being thrown around! But the most important thing was that we crossed the finish line on all four runners.
When we came across the line and the showed us the “one”, and there was so much relief and it was just such an awesome feeling!
