Kristina Vogel (born 10 November 1990) is a former German

track cyclist Track cycling is a bicycle racing sport usually held on specially built banked tracks or velodromes using purpose-designed track bicycles. History Track cycling has been around since at least 1870. When track cycling was in its infancy, it wa ...

. During her career, she won two gold medals and a bronze at the

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

, and is an eleven-time UCI World Champion. She was paralysed following a crash in June 2018.

Career

Vogel was born in Leninskoye, a district of

Bishkek Bishkek ( ky, Бишкек), ), formerly Pishpek and Frunze, is the capital and largest city of Kyrgyzstan. Bishkek is also the administrative centre of the Chüy Region. The region surrounds the city, although the city itself is not part of ...

, the capital of

Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the east. ...

, and moved to Germany with her parents when she was six months old. In 2007 and 2008 she competed at the Junior European and World Championships and became a six-time junior world champion and two-time junior European champion. In April 2009, Vogel was seriously injured after a collision with a

minibus A minibus, microbus, minicoach, or commuter (in Zimbabwe) is a passenger-carrying motor vehicle that is designed to carry more people than a multi-purpose vehicle or minivan, but fewer people than a full-size bus. In the United Kingdom, th ...

when riding on the roads near her home in

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits i ...

. She was in an artificial coma for two days. She recovered to compete at the 2010 UCI Track Cycling World Championships, where she finished fifth in the individual sprint and sixth in the team sprint alongside

Miriam Welte Miriam Welte (born 9 December 1986) is a German track cyclist. Career At the 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in Melbourne, Welte and Kristina Vogel won the gold medal in the team sprint. They set a world record in qualifying which th ...

. She also competed at the

2011 UCI Track Cycling World Championships The 2011 UCI Track Cycling World Championships was the World Championships for track cycling in 2011. The championships took place at the Omnisport Apeldoorn in Apeldoorn, Netherlands from 23 to 27 March 2011. In January 2012 it was announced that ...

At the 2012 UCI Track Cycling World Championships in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

, Vogel and Welte won the gold medal in the

team sprint The team sprint (also sometimes known as the Olympic sprint) is a track cycling event. Despite its name, it is not a conventional cycling sprint event – it is a three-rider team time trial held over three laps of a velodrome. The current men's ...

. They set a

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

in qualifying which they broke again in the final. Vogel and Welte went on to win the first ever Olympic gold medal in the women's team sprint later that year in London, benefiting from competitors being relegated in both the semifinal and final. At the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics ( pt, Jogos Olímpicos de Verão de 2016), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad ( pt, Jogos da XXXI Olimpíada) and also known as Rio 2016, was an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 20 ...

, she won another gold, in the women's sprint, and a bronze medal in the women's team sprint again with Miriam Welte. On 26 June 2018, in the

Cottbus Cottbus (; Lower Sorbian: ''Chóśebuz'' ; Polish: Chociebuż) is a university city and the second-largest city in Brandenburg, Germany. Situated around southeast of Berlin, on the River Spree, Cottbus is also a major railway junction with exten ...

velodrome, Vogel collided at high speed with a Dutch junior cyclist who was practising a standing start. The heavy impact on the concrete floor caused several fractures, severing her spinal cord at the seventh

thoracic vertebrae In vertebrates, thoracic vertebrae compose the middle segment of the vertebral column, between the cervical vertebrae and the lumbar vertebrae. In humans, there are twelve thoracic vertebra (anatomy), vertebrae and they are intermediate in size b ...

and consequently caused

paraplegia Paraplegia, or paraparesis, is an impairment in motor or sensory function of the lower extremities. The word comes from Ionic Greek () "half-stricken". It is usually caused by spinal cord injury or a congenital condition that affects the neural ...

. Vogel's teammate Maximilian Levy was the first to come to her aid, and following the accident, he and fellow cyclist Max Dörnbach, using the hashtag #staystrongkristina, went on to raise €119,752 for her recovery. The Dutch cyclist was uninjured, but Vogel was left paralysed. In addition to her track cycling career, Vogel was a part-time police officer before her accident. In 2019, she entered politics, standing for election as a candidate for the

Christian Democratic Union of Germany The Christian Democratic Union of Germany (german: link=no, Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands ; CDU ) is a Christian democratic and liberal conservative political party in Germany. It is the major catch-all party of the centre-right ...

city council elections.

Major results

;2008 ::UCI World Junior Track Championships ::1st Jersey rainbow

Keirin ::1st Jersey rainbow

Sprint ::1st Jersey rainbow

500m time trial :2nd Sprint, Grand Prix de Vitesse de Saint Denis ;2014 :UEC European Championships ::1st UEC Champion Jersey

Keirin ::2nd Team Sprint (with

) ::3rd Sprint :Cottbuser SprintCup ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint ::1st 500m Time Trial :Memorial of Alexander Lesnikov ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint ::1st 500m Time Trial :Cottbuser SprintCup (2) ::1st Keirin ::2nd Sprint :GP von Deutschland im Sprint ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint :Cottbuser Nächte ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint ::1st Team Sprint (with

) :1st Sprint, Track-Cycling Challenge Grenchen ;2015 :Cottbuser SprintCup ::1st Keirin ::2nd Sprint :GP von Deutschland im Sprint ::1st Keirin ::3rd Team Sprint (with

) :Internationale Radsport Meeting ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint ::1st 500m Time Trial :1st Keirin, Cottbuser Nächte :

UEC European Track Championships The European Track Cycling Championships are a set of elite level competition events held annually for the various disciplines and distances in track cycling, exclusively for European cyclists, and regulated by the European Cycling Union (UEC ...

::2nd Team Sprint (with

) ::3rd Sprint :2nd Sprint, Cottbuser SprintCup :2nd Sprint, Dudenhofen :3rd Keirin, Öschelbronn ;2016 :GP von Deutschland im Sprint ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint ::1st Team Sprint (with

) :Cottbuser SprintCup ::1st Sprint ::2nd Keirin ::3rd 500m Time Trial ;2017 :UCI World Track Championships ::1st Jersey rainbow

Keirin ::3rd Team Sprint (with

) :1st

Sprint, Round 1, (

Pruszków Pruszków ( yi, ‏פּרושקאָוו) is a city in east-central Poland, situated in the Masovian Voivodeship since 1999. It was previously in Warszawa Voivodeship (1975–1998). Pruszków is the capital of Pruszków County, located along t ...

) Track Cycling World Cup :

::1st

Keirin ::1st European champion jersey 2016

Sprint ::2nd Team Sprint (with

) :1st Sprint, Öschelbronn :1st Keirin, Oberhausen :1st Sprint, Dudenhofen :Cottbuser SprintCup ::1st Keirin ::1st Sprint :1st Sprint GP von Deutschland im Sprint :National Track Championships ::1st MaillotAlemania

Keirin ::1st MaillotAlemania

Sprint ::1st MaillotAlemania

Team Sprint (with Pauline Grabosch) ::3rd 500m Time Trial

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Vogel, Kristina Living people 1990 births German female cyclists Kyrgyzstani people of German descent German people of Kyrgyzstani descent Citizens of Germany through descent UCI Track Cycling World Champions (women) Cyclists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Cyclists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic cyclists of Germany Olympic gold medalists for Germany Olympic bronze medalists for Germany Olympic medalists in cycling People from Chüy Region Medalists at the 2012 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics German track cyclists People with paraplegia People from Sömmerda (district) Cyclists from Thuringia 20th-century German women 21st-century German women Soviet emigrants to Germany