Heike Friedrich (wheelchair basketball)

Heike Friedrich (born 14 June 1976) is a 4.5 point wheelchair basketball player, who plays for the Mainhatten Skywheelers. She was a professional basketball player who played for TuS Lichterfeld, Wild Cats Aschaffenburg, TV Langen und TV Hofheim. She was with the Bundesliga club TV Langen for five years, and the Germany women's national basketball team for nine years, playing 204 international games. Since taking up wheelchair basketball in 2006, she has played with the German national team which won European titles in 2009 and 2011, and was runner-up in 2013. The team was also runner-up at the IWBF World Championship in Birmingham in 2010, and won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf).

Heike Friedrich in a match against Japan in Sydney, July 2012

Heike Friedrich

Friedrich at the Gliders and Rollers World Challenge in Sydney, July 2012
Personal information
Nickname(s)	Hightower
Nationality	Germany
Born	14 June 1976
Height	191 cm (6 ft 3 in)
Sport
Country	Germany
Sport	Basketball Wheelchair basketball
Disability class	4.5
Event(s)	Women's team
Team	Mainhatten Skywheelers
Coached by	Holger Glinicki
Achievements and titles
Paralympic finals	2012 Summer Paralympics
Medal record Women's wheelchair basketball Paralympic Games 2012 London Team competition World Championships 2010 Birmingham Team competition 2014 Toronto Team competition European Championships 2009 Stoke Mandeville Team competition 2011 Nazareth Team competition 2013 Frankfurt Team competition 2015 Worcester Team competition

Biography

Heike Friedrich was born in Berlin on 14 June 1976.[1][2] She was a professional basketball player who played for TuS Lichterfeld, Wild Cats Aschaffenburg, TV Langen und TV Hofheim. She was with the Bundesliga club TV Langen for five years, and the Germany women's national basketball team for nine years, playing 204 international games.[3] She injured her right knee in a game in Saarlouis in 1995. After a series of X-rays, scans and MRIs, she had surgery on the knee at Martin Luther Hospital in Berlin. She returned to playing, but problems and complications occurred, and her cruciate ligaments tore. She had surgery eight more times. By 2006, her lower right calf muscles had become partly paralysed due to nerve damage.[3][4]

Friedrich began playing wheelchair basketball on 2006. In 2007, she joined Team 99 Aschaffenburg. Since 2009, she has played for the Mainhatten Skywheelers in Frankfurt.[3][4] Classified as a 4.5 point player, Friedrich plays center.[1] She joined the national wheelchair basketball team, which was coached by Holger Glinicki, in 2009, playing in the European Wheelchair Basketball Championship at Stoke Mandeville in Great Britain in the August of that year.[5] The German team went on to become silver medallists at the Wheelchair Basketball World Championship in Birmingham in 2010.[6][7]

She was part of the team that won the European Championships in Nazareth, Israel, in 2011, thereby qualifying for the 2012 Summer Paralympic Games in London. As part of the team's preparation, they toured the United States and Australia.[8][9] In the Gold Medal match in London, the team faced the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team,[10] who had defeated them 48–46 in Sydney just a few months before,[11] in front of a capacity crowd of over 12,000 at the North Greenwich Arena.[10]

The German team had been undefeated up to that point, but had started off slow in its games against the United States and China, winning these games by six-point margins, and seemed to play its best basketball only in the final minutes of a game.[12] They defeated the Australians 44–58 in front of a crowd of over 12,000 at the North Greenwich Arena to win the gold medal,[10] the first that Germany had won in women's wheelchair basketball since 1984.[13] They were awarded Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf) by President Joachim Gauck in November 2012,[14] and were named Team of the Year for 2012.[13]

The German team lost the European Championship to the Netherlands before a home town crowd of 2,300 in Frankfurt in July 2013 by one point, 56-57.[15] At the 2014 Women's World Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Toronto, Canada, in June 2014, the team won silver after being defeated by Canada in the final.[16] [17]

Achievements

• 2009: Gold European Championships (Stoke Mandeville, Great Britain) [18]
• 2010: Silver World Championships (Birmingham, Great Britain) [6][7]
• 2011: Gold at the European Championships (Nazareth, Israel) [8]
• 2012: Gold at the Paralympic Games (London, England) [10]
• 2013: Silver at the European Championships (Frankfurt, Germany) [15]
• 2014: Silver at the World Championships (Toronto, Canada) [16][17]
• 2015: Gold at the European Championships (Worcester, England) [19]

Awards

• 2012: Team of the Year [13]
• 2012: Silver Laurel Leaf [14]

References

1. "Heike Friedrich". Official site of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Archived from the original on 13 September 2012. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
2. "Spielerportrait - Heike Friedrich" (in German). RBBL. Archived from the original on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
3. "Körbe werfen beim Autoscooter" (in German). Archived from the original on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
4. "Interview mit der deutschen Rollstuhlbasketballspielerin Heike Friedrich" (in German). Medical Sports Network. Archived from the original on 12 July 2013. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
5. Joneck, Andreas. "Press Release 46/2009" (PDF) (in German). BS Brandenburg. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 April 2014. Retrieved 13 April 2014.
6. "Germany Women". British Wheelchair Basketball. Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
7. "World Championships - Results". International Wheelchair Basketball Federation. Archived from the original on 9 July 2014. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
8. "Nu Nguyen-Thi darf nicht mit: Holger Glinicki benennt Kader für die Paralympics". Rolling Planet (in German). 12 June 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
9. "Härtetest in Australien: Platz zwei für Team Germany". Rolling Planet (in German). 22 July 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
10. "Germany claim women's crown". Official site of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 7 September 2012. Archived from the original on 30 April 2013. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
11. Mannion, Tim (21 July 2012). "Victory for Rollers and Gliders as London Awaits". Archived from the original on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
12. "No. 22: Germany bucket first gold since 1984". Official site of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. 10 December 2012. Retrieved 3 March 2013.
13. "Rollstuhlbasketballerinnen sind Mannschaft des Jahres" (in German). HSV-Rollstuhlsport. 26 November 2012. Archived from the original on 27 June 2015. Retrieved 27 June 2015.
14. "Verleihung des Silbernen Lorbeerblattes" (in German). Bundespräsidialamt. 7 November 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
15. "Rollstuhlbasketball-EM: Deutsche Damen nach über einem Jahrzehnt entthront". Rolling Planet (in German). 6 July 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
16. "2014 WWWBC: Germany". Wheelchair Basketball Canada. Archived from the original on 2 February 2015. Retrieved 28 June 2014.
17. Joneck, Andreas. "Deutscher WM-Traum platzt zum zweiten Mal" (in German). Team Germany. Archived from the original on 14 July 2014. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
18. Joisten, Bernd (20 October 2010). "Edina Müller: "Ich bin ein Mensch, der nach vorn blickt"". General-Anzeiger (in German). Retrieved 5 February 2012.
19. "Germany earn 10th women's European Wheelchair Basketball Championship title as hosts Britain win men's gold". Inside the Games. Retrieved 9 September 2015.

External links

• Heike Friedrich at the International Paralympic Committee