Berlin – Five in the morning, the alarm goes off. As always. Freshen up, on the way to work, an hour later Valeria Kleiner is sitting at the desk. Until lunch break. While others are eating or relaxing, the 30-year-old from Lindau on Lake Constance has the first training session of the day on the program. Done, go back to work before heading home from work to the second unit. Arrived at home, training number three, stretching, then cooking, also for the next day.
2010 World Champion with the U20
It has little to do with the life that Valeria Kleiner led as a professional soccer player. Especially when, as is sometimes the case, the first training session is due at six in the morning. The U20 world champion from 2010 has quickly become a triathlete who wants to swim, cycle and run as a professional athlete in the coming year. “Right now I realize what everything has to be taken care of. That’s such an extra effort that there simply wasn’t any footballing, ”says Kleiner. Travel tickets, hotels – “you didn’t have to worry about anything,” she remembers and thinks: “A certain degree of independence wouldn’t hurt either.” That is exactly what is required of her.
Triathlon takes a lot of time, costs a lot of effort and costs a lot of money. It’s a lot harder because she can’t make a living from sport at the moment, says Kleiner, also in comparison to her footballing career, which she joined SC Freiburg, 1. FFC Frankfurt, FC Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen from 2007 onwards Had led. A knee injury ultimately ended the career in which she had also been successful in the German junior teams.
Especially with Maren Meinert as a trainer. The 48-year-old describes Kleiner in an interview as “very hard-working and very meticulous”. Meinert knew nothing about the new career path of her former selection player. “She played for me as a central defender, so the mileage doesn’t really matter,” replied Meinert when asked whether Kleiner would have attracted particular attention back then because of his stamina.
Diligence and meticulousness are also important requirements in triathlon. Due to the lengthy injury and rehabilitation breaks, the team athlete and selection game leader Valeria Kleiner, who was awarded the Fritz Walter bronze medal, became a lone fighter. After retiring in 2014, Kleiner began studying business administration in Munich; she had already studied economics while she was a footballer.
At the end of 2019, the first really serious competition in the new profession. It was no longer noticeable that she once had to take a break after 25 meters in the water. The beginnings with a rental bike are also long gone. Kleiner has already won races in her age group. The professional athletes with whom she wants to compete in 2022, however, still pulled away from her.
Finding sponsors is the toughest discipline
Together with trainer Utz Brenner, who coaches Ironman Hamburg winner Laura Zimmermann, among other things, Kleiner is preparing for her first professional season. It should be in the top five or even on the podium in the second half of the year, six starts in middle distance races are planned so far, plus a few on shorter routes to prepare and get in the mood. “At the beginning, I hadn’t imagined that things would go in the professional direction again,” she says. “But I am fascinated by what can be achieved with discipline and hard work.”
But that alone is not enough. In addition to training and work, Kleiner also has to take care of potential sponsors. Probably the most sobering discipline in a professional triathlete’s three-way battle in the early days. “It’s a real problem. To have this pressure that you have to work to make money and, on the other hand, have high expenses. You’re not really liberated, ”she emphasizes. Especially since the search for sponsors is rather difficult. “Hardly anyone is interested in a young triathlete,” she said. The interest is more in team sports and especially football. “It’s tough,” says Kleiner, the former professional soccer player.