She won Olympic gold, silver and bronze, was world champion twice and wore the German champion's jersey 19 times. Sabine Spitz from the Black Forest has been in the saddle for 26 years, longer than any other rider in the peloton. She has since been nicknamed "Granny Spitz".
She bid farewell to professional sport at the 2019 Marathon World Championships in Grächen/Switzerland. After officially ending her career, she now wants to move to her new adopted home of South Africa. A few days before her departure, the BIKE team welcomes her for an exclusive interview.
The door to her flat next to her parents' house in Herrischried, where she was born, is open when we arrive. Sabine starts by making us a strong cappuccino with her shiny chrome professional machine. "Coffee is my drug," she says.
BIKE: Your biking career is probably the only one that started in the disco ...
Sabine Spitz: (smiles) I didn't grow up that sporty. I played football, but we only had three girls in the club, so there was no team. My parents aren't that sporty, they didn't want to drive me to Laufenburg two or three times a week for training, where there was a women's team.
Then I also practised ice hockey because we have an ice rink here. And when I was twelve, I started skiing and sat at the ticket booth at the lift. I used it to supplement my pocket money and could ski for free. But I actually met Ralf, who got me into biking, at the disco. Friday was always 80s music, Phil Collins and stuff like that.
After the disco evening at the "Oase" in Bad Säckingen, the two meet again the next evening at the sportsmen's ball in Murg - and there's a spark. It turned into a 26-year relationship. Ralf is not only the husband, he also takes on the managerial duties. The keen mountain biker also infects Sabine with the MTB virus. She takes part in the national league final near Furtwangen on a borrowed wheeler - and comes last.
But she has tasted blood. 1994 is her first real racing season, when Sabine is already 23 years old. She is not happy in her job as a chemical laboratory technician. But she blossoms when it comes to biking. She finished 45th at the 1995 World Championships and decided to concentrate fully on the sport. She stops working as a laboratory technician. The initial spark was her participation in the 2000 Olympics.
What did your first Olympic Games participation in Sydney mean to you?
Sydney gave me an incredible boost of motivation. You meet athletes that you only know from television and you yourself are so small and wearing a hat. Wow, I thought, they're there with the goal of winning a medal.
For me, the only thing that mattered was the Olympic idea of being there. The German House was within walking distance of the Olympic Village. I was present at many of the honours. I knew then that it was still too early this time. But next time I want to be up there too.
At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens you fulfilled your wish.
In early summer, we travelled to Athens with the national team and watched the course. I thought to myself: What the hell is this place? There were a lot of metres of elevation gain per lap, the surface was loose, all in all it wasn't that great. I couldn't do much with the course, but I realised that everyone had the same conditions.
The highlight of every athlete's career is an Olympic gold medal. You did it in Beijing 2008. How did that go exactly?
We had a pre-Olympic competition on the track in 2007 and I liked it straight away. I realised: if not here, then where? The requirement profile was tailor-made for me. It was simply a great course. We tried to collect a lot of data during this pre-Olympic competition. With GPS, with the SRM power measurement crank. We recorded videos with the GoPro.
Except for a few seconds, I was able to ride the course perfectly in my head. I knew exactly which corner I had to be in which gear to make the most of the momentum. It was important not to waste any energy on braking and accelerating. Well, that was my perfect race and the gold medal.
Would you say that was your happiest moment in your life as an athlete?
To be honest, the silver medal in London 2012 means just as much to me as the gold in Beijing. The race in London was pretty open until I went off in that rock garden, a riding mistake. Georgia Gould, Julie Bresset and I had actually already pulled away from the field.
Julie was then the first to go down the stone slope. Don't ask me what exactly I did there. Anyway, I suddenly went over the handlebars. Thank God nothing more happened, the bike wasn't damaged. It took me at least one lap to collect myself again. With the luck of the draw, that was an incredibly valuable medal for me.
Sabine Spitz had to go under the knife twice in 2013. First on her left shoulder (crash in Albstadt), then on her right (crash in Pietermaritzburg/South Africa). But she quickly got back into training and won the World Cup in Andorra. Her tenacity and motivation to not let injuries set her back is extraordinary.
But in 2016, she was put to the test. After a fall in Canada, she suffers a flesh wound on her knee, which becomes infected and cancels out the planned successful conclusion to her career at the Olympic Games in Rio. She retires after a disappointing 19th place.
After the Olympic Games, she had to have three knee operations. The skin doesn't want to grow back. Sabine sits on the couch for endless days, has to keep her leg stretched out and can see her exposed kneecap.
You were already 40 years old in London, and yet you wanted to take part again in Rio 2016.
Rio was ouch. It made my heart bleed that it was so stupid. That would have been my graduation. But it was so unfinished. The last chapter wasn't finished. I didn't want to stop with the race in Rio.
The Marathon World Championships was your last race. You finished tenth. A worthy finish?
I'm happy with tenth place. The course with the steep climbs is not at all my favourite. But top ten in the world at the age of 47, that's not bad, I think (smiles). Yes, I've written my last chapter.
For you, the Olympics were always more than just a sporting event. In the run-up to the Games in China, you were part of a campaign to draw attention to the situation in occupied Tibet. How political should athletes be?
It's my personal opinion anyway that the situation in Tibet is not right. That wasn't necessarily related to the Olympics, even though it was taken up there, of course. Everyone had an opinion somewhere. You're asked about it and instead of saying I don't want to comment on it or I don't have an opinion, I said what I thought. Suppression is not right.
What happens now? You've moved out of the house you shared and will be spending the winter in South Africa. Sounds like a kind of new beginning.
Yes, South Africa will be an important location for me in the future, especially in winter at the moment. It's something of a new beginning for me. I love the warmth, the country and it's simply brilliant for mountain biking. Mountain biking is extremely popular in South Africa and on a scale that you can't even imagine in this country. There are MTB clubs with several thousand members.
I have already established family contacts there, so it has now become a second home. I now have the opportunity and the time to travel back and forth between the two countries. It has become an important country for me, where I also see a future in terms of professional activities. But Germany, where my real family lives, will also remain important.
Looking back, would you want to change anything in your life?
I couldn't say anything spontaneously right now. I'm happy with how it is and how it went. If one small thing had changed in the past, you don't know what effect that would have on the overall picture today.
Have you made a living after 26 years of racing?
I'm in the fortunate position that I don't have to earn money from one day to the next (smiles). You just have a few investments where a bit of money comes in. Conservative thinking pays off to a certain extent here (laughs).
Will you stay involved in bike sports?
In any case. Biking remains a passion for me. I co-commentated the cross-country World Cup races for Red Bull three times in 2019, and I want to keep doing that. I also have the idea of passing on my expertise, my experience and my passion for the sport in a kind of "Sabine Spitz Mountain Bike Academy".
Won't you miss racing?
At some point it's good. I'll certainly do a few more races, but as the mood takes me, so that the focus is more on having fun. It was all good the way it turned out. It's good the way it is now. My motto: It should always be fun and never become a compulsion.
Top performance: What racing colleagues say about the retirement
She came last in her first race. 26 years later, Sabine Spitz is considered the most successful female biker in the world. This is what the racing scene has to say about her retirement.
