(August 24, 2021) – For our 11th athlete profile of 2021 (and the 33rd in the “Getting to Know…” series) we talk with 2018 Olympian Anna Fernstädt. Fernstädt is entering her ninth year of IBSF international competition and in that time has racked up an extensive list of accolades. Between the various tours and championships, Anna has won 36 medals including 14 golds, and has finished in the top five 51 times. She is a three-time Junior World Champion who finished sixth in the 2018 Olympics, only .14 out of a bronze medal. In the 2018/2019 season she switched teams from Germany to the Czech Republic, where she won the country its first ever silver medal in IBSF World Cup skeleton.
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Slider: Anna Fernstädt
Team: Czech Republic Skeleton
Home track: Königssee
Hometown: Šumperk, Czech Republic
Anna would like to thank all of her sponsors for their continued support of her career in sliding!
So like we ask every week, what’s your favorite track and why?
My favorite track is Lake Placid! It’s technical, and I like harder tracks and I don’t really like the “dead fish” tracks. My first time there…normally I’m very nervous before my first runs on any track. Normally I kind of get to know the track, and the first runs are never me going “Nice!”, it’s a lot more like “Everything hurts!” Lake Placid was the first time ever I’d gotten to the bottom and thought “I want to go again!” It was so fun! It’s the mix of Devil’s Highway, then you have the long curve in 10…I mean my first run was horrible and it hurt. And I didn’t even know from which part of the track it hurt, but it was just so much fun. Devil’s Highway is like you go through a washing machine, then you have time to breathe, then you have to be perfect in Curve 12 so you don’t fly. And I was flying out of 12 on that first run. But then you have the chicane which is fun, then heart…and it’s just really technical and I like that. It’s just the mix of everything!
You’re the first skeleton athlete to say Lake Placid when I ask this!
I know, I know. Everyone gives me a look like “Really? Lake Placid?!” But it’s really a lot of fun!
Unrelated to the track, where’s your favorite town on schedule to visit?
It’s also Lake Placid! I love it there: America is a little bit extreme if you’re a European. Lake Placid is just fine though.
Probably also Whistler! People also say St. Mortiz, and it’s beautiful with the mountains but you have that with Königssee, you have mountains and a lot of snow there and it’s really nice. But I really like Lake Placid and Whistler.
Germany has so many options for sports, how did you end up in skeleton?
I lived close to Frankfurt when I grew up. My brother and I did gymnastics back then. In 2010 we moved to Berchtesgaden, and we hadn’t been at “elite level” gymnastics but we were pretty decent. So when we got there they didn’t have a good gymnastics club, so we tried in Salzburg in Austria. So we both did that, but it got too much with the driving, it’s like an hour bus ride plus a 15 minute walk home, so it wasn’t really so cool with school and everything. Then I did Team Gym…you have dance on the floor with the whole team. And there’s vault with a trampoline, and then extra trampoline. And then you have an airtrack, if you take out the acrobatic stuff from the floor routines, it’s on the floor and you do the acrobatic stuff. It was pretty cool, but really just for fun, but we just had a girls team and my brother had to find something else.
So we were in Berchtesgaden and we had to find a winter sport, because the only thing you can do there is winter sports since they don’t have many summer sports. My brother did pretty well on snowboard, so he did snowboard. I was 14 and he was maybe 12, so that was still a good age to start snowboarding. For me a lot of sports fell away because of my age: Skiing, speedskating, everything I was too old to start. The sliding track was just out of our door, so I went to the track and was just like “Can I try something?” I was like “Can I try luge?” and they told me I was too old! There they start at like age six. So I was like “What about bobsled?” and they told me I was too young. So I was like “Okay, bye…” and they told me I could try skeleton and I was like “That head first thing?! Nope!” So they said to try it, and I did and it was horrible. But they said I was laying pretty well on the sled, and they asked me to do a second run. That one was even worse because I knew what was going to come. But the coaches tried to convince me to do more and more. I finished the four runs of training and they said I should come back. The more I did it I started to figure out how everything works and how to not take hits in Bendaway…
Did they tell you what you should or shouldn’t be doing or did they just send you on your way?
Out of S1! They were like “Just go, and try to go straight!” Then I started to figure this all out a little bit and that’s how I got into it. It was like January or February then so I had a couple of trainings. Then the next season I did a full season and it went pretty well. I was still doing TeamGym at that point, but in my third full year of skeleton I qualified for Europa Cup so I had to decide on what to do. I figured I was on an international team after a couple of years…and we did a European Cup in the TeamGym too, but it was for fun. I thought I wouldn’t do as much in gymnastics as I could in skeleton, so that’s why I stuck with it.
Sometimes you have posts of you doing gymnastics moves. Do you practice any of that still?
I don’t, it’s just like riding a bike! Sometimes I do a handstand or something, and if there’s a trampoline around I’ll do some flips and things like that, but that’s it.
Who’s your favorite gymnast?
Shawn Johnson, she was around when I was in the age to start doing gymnastics. She was in the Olympics…I mean Simone Biles is so awesome, but I grew up in gymnastics with Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin, so that’s why.
After the 2018 Olympics you moved from the German team to the Czech team. How different has it been sliding for Czechia?
It’s been a lot different. The biggest difference is that I don’t have a team around me. I have my coach and my physio, which is great, but I don’t have a lot of people around me. So that was weird at the beginning, but then I started my cooperation with Leslie which was fun. So we’ve been two together, then Nick Timmings was in our group a bit, and we’ve had people helping out which has been nice. But the biggest difference is not having the big team. You have to organize everything on your own, do everything on your own. I’m my own team and I have to organize everything.
Do you enjoy that at all or would you rather have someone doing it?
It depends. If I trust them then yes! It was also nice looking for places to stay and to do “Yeah, I can go there, I can do that” and kind of do everything I want.
I see you’ve got a ton of Czech sponsors there, have you enjoyed working with them?
Yeah, I absolutely couldn’t do it without the sponsors. Money-wise it’s not possible to do it full time without them. So that’s really helps. And Big Shock! does a lot of things, it’s fun and I enjoy it.
When the season ends, what do you like to do to relax in that month of downtime?
I just had three weeks this season! This year I stayed at home because of no traveling or anything, I didn’t want to complicate anything. And after the season ends it’s nice to be home for a while and see the family. So I’m normally at home, I have my dog and we go hiking a lot. I like spending time with family and friends.
Where’s been your favorite place to travel, non-skeleton related?
I haven’t been to that many places, but I’d have to say Italy. We have a summer house there and been going there for maybe 20 years now? Its a 10-12h long drive from where we live, but the place, the food, the people there, it’s the best. The best part is that it feels like coming home even if its a vacation.
It’s nice because it’s like going on vacation, but you’re home. You know where everything is and everything…it’s a long drive, maybe 10 to 12 hours? But you can do it in a day.
Absolutely, it’s 12 hours from Durham to Lake Placid!
Yeah, but that’s America…for European people that’s a lot! But it’s so nice, you don’t have to organize where you’re sleeping. You know all the restaurants, you know all the people, you know where to go…it’s very nice. I love it there. I’ve been to Madeira in Portugal with my mom after the Olympics…but I haven’t been on any really big vacations in the last few years.
Tell us about your dog!
Bounty is more like a familiy dog, not just mine. He’s with my aunt most of the time because with the season and all the training it wouldnt be possible for me to care for him. But he is perfect. He is full-in if I wanna go for a hike, but when I have a lazy day he just sleeps around too. He doesnt bark, sleeps in the car, listens very well. It’s always funny, people ask me how he got trained so well and I have to tell them “he’s not, he’s just like that!” He’s the best!
Before a race sometimes you’re out there with headphones on, do you have a particular playlist you listen to while you warm up?
I really haven’t been listening to music lately. My coach is around so I’m usually talking to them. The music just depends on how I feel, usually it’s something to feel good. It’s more into pop, not so much rap or hip-hop. So pop, rock, country sometimes.
What’s your warmup routine like? Do you have a timetable you work with?
I count backwards from the time where I’ll be on the start line. I’ll be there when the second to next slider before me finishes. So it’s 15 minutes for changing, a 40 minute warmup cycle, and I count back from that.
It’s kind of the same all of the time. I wake up, then I have a morning routine, that takes like 40min. Meditation, then a workout routine to activate and just get moving, and then a cold shower…
Why a cold shower?!
Well, my coach said I should try it. I hate the cold (especially cold water), I had to get used to it and start with not too cold water but now I got kinda used to it, and its making me feel good. My breakfast is normally the same every day so I don’t really change it for race day, yogurt, some fruits and nuts and coffee of course.
What has been your favorite sliding sport memory?
I have a couple…Junior World Championships in Winterberg was great. Königssee was great too, but that’s my home track and it was my third Junior Worlds.
My first European Cup win was in Igls, so that too. I don’t know how exactly…
Big starter track, so right up your alley!
It was one of my favorite moments because it was so unexpected. I was training and was round tenth quickest, then the last training I was up to sixth, and I thought that if I could get a top six that would be great. Then in the race I was leading by a hundredth of a second, and I was so nervous I nearly threw up on the start line. And before that race I’d always had one good run and one bad run in a race, and I was so nervous because I’d already used up my good run! But then I had another good run and I won and I couldn’t believe I’d won in Igls of all places! So I really remember that.
The team bronze medal in Königssee in World Champs there was cool, and my first ICC and World Cups in Lake Placid were both great. Of course, the Königssee silver medal this year was great! I was sitting in fifth place for that and I was pretty far away from the lead. I finished my run and knew it was enough to hold the spot, it wasn’t a run where I thought I’d be fighting for the medals because I tapped in Kreisel but I got away with it. It wasn’t a perfect run, but everyone struggled in the second heat. It was just crazy!
Do you have any races you’d like to get another crack at?
You always have bad races. This year in Igls, the last race, I was sitting in fourth overall and I had calculated what I needed to finish third. It could have been possible then I just missed it by just .05. It’s always the races where you’re always a couple of hundredths away from something that you really remember. The Olympics are another one like that, it’s always the close ones.
Question from Alex Ferlazzo (AUS Luge): What has it been like competing against your old German teammates?
It’s actually not very different. Even if you’re on the team it’s still an individual sport, so on race day everyone is kind of your competitor. It’s still just me, I’m not a whole different person because I’m sliding for a different country. If I had a German suit on or a Czech suit on, Jacqueline Lölling is still my competitor and the other Germans are still my competitors. From that point it’s not really different.
