“The Norm” (www.die-norm.de) is a German web documentary by filmmaker Guido Weihermüller and his team, who accompany some German top athletes from different sports like beach volleyball, track and field and of course swimming. They have started with Steffen Deibler, the current World Record holder in the short course 50 m butterfly, and they will add some more swimmers in the near future, like Jacob Heidtmann, fifth in the 400 m IM at the 2015 World Championships in Kazan.
The website describes their goals with this documentation:
“ Citius, Altius, Fortius – Faster, Higher, Stronger” is the Olympic motto of the modern era since 1894 and it brings to the point what is at stake in the biggest sporting event in the world: high performance. Every four years, suddenly minority sports – everything except football –are in the focus of sports coverage. Whoever triumphs, is the hero of a whole nation. But everything does not always run according to their plans for the athletes.”
In addition to the web version, Guido and Silvia Weihermüller also want to produce a documentary which should be shown in theaters after the 2016 Olympics. The selected athletes are all from the Olympic training center Hamburg/Schleswig-Holstein – and the filmmakers also want to give the protagonists and the sports city of Hamburg a stage in their web documentation and the movie. Hamburg is one of the candidate cities for the Olympic Games in 2024.
Guido Weihermüller describes his intention with the film: ”We want to make the path of athletes comprehensible and put the human-being in the extreme environment of the high performance sports in the center.”
The websites describes the qualifying process: “In professional sports, a standard is always an obstacle that must be overcome. Only those who reach the required standard qualify. For this purpose a qualification standard is defined for each sport by the national and international sports federations. The aim of the various Olympic standards is always to select the best athletes. In Germany, that is: The required standard is set so high that a German athlete has a real chance to compete in a final and therefore at least theoretically is a medal candidate. THE NORM wants to find out how top athletes really are: how do they organize their lives, coping with setbacks and failures and showing what drives them. For us filmmakers sporting success is not the decisive criterion for the selection of our protagonists. We want to accompany a year of their life and find out together where the path leads. The athletes themselves are part of the film project and participate actively with video diaries and in the social networks. All should come together in the web documentary www.die-norm.de – it should be a new, vibrant and digital form of storytelling.”
The producer of “THE NORM,” Silvia Weihermüller, has already had a surprising success in German cinemas with the Hamburg production company CLOSE DISTANCE PRODUCTIONS documentary “Changing times – On the way to the first triathlon”.
The filmmakers quote Pierre de Coubertin on their website to show their intentions:
“The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part; as well as in life it isn’t essential to conquer, but to give his best. “(Pierre de Coubertin, the initiator of the modern Olympic Games, he said this on the occasion of the dispute between British and American sprinters on the victory in the 400-meter race in years 1908 in London (source: Wikipedia).
One of the protagonists in the web documentation is Germany’s top swimmer Steffen Deibler – he was part of the so-called elite squad with Marco Koch and Paul Biedermann within the German Swimming Federation (DSV) and was thus automatically nominated for the 2015 World Championships in Kazan. But for the 2016 Olympic Games he must qualify like all swimmers through a first or second place finish at the German Championships in the coming spring while also undercutting two standard times in prelims and in the final. If swimmers achieve this first qualification step then he or she will have to confirm the performance on a further competition which will be specified by DSV (German Swimming Federation). This qualification procedure also was chosen for the World Championships in Kazan and is, according to German National Head Coach Henning Lambertz, the result of experiences they made in the past and it should be the correct way to motivate the swimmers to keep their performance on a high level for a period of about 3 months from the German Championships until the season highlight like World Championships or Olympic Games.
Steffen Deibler already took part in the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London. His goal is to win an Olympic medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics. In the first episode of his video documentation, which you can view here, he said: “To work every day on getting faster, gives my life at the moment a sense that it needs a lot of fine tuning to be ready at the right moment and to swim a good time. The Olympic Games are huge. I participated twice. All Olympic sports are preparing over four years prior to the Games. They will all meet in Rio to show their best performances. When I think about it, I get goose bumps, it’s so awesome.”
The video shows Deibler in his trainings pool in Hamburg in different practice situations – with his coach Petra Wolfram, who said that he is very focused and working on his goals. Deibler is sure that he is able to swim faster and that he will reach his limits. The 28-year old works in the video on his starts with Stefan Fuhrmann, a training scientist – their goal is to jump further. Deibler is ready to put all in the preparation for Rio and hopes to build on his international successes. He is the current World Record holder in the 50 m butterfly (short course) in 21,80 seconds – he set this record at the 2009 Berlin World Cup. In Kazan, he didn’t compete in the 50 m butterfly – he placed 11th overall in the 100 m butterfly (which, in contrast to the 50 m, is an Olmypic distance) and so didn’t make the final. In the 400 m freestyle relay, he swam a very good 48,24 seconds (as the second swimmer in the relay) – but Germany failed to make the top eight relay final with an 11th place – but at least that means the direct qualification for Rio.
There will be more video documentations about and by Steffen Deibler and of course we are going to continue reporting about his road to Rio – maybe his third Olympic Games.
Steffen Deibler Quick Facts
- Date of Birth: 1987/07/10
- Place of birth: Biberach an der Riss
- Training location: Hamburg-Barmbek
- Distances: 50m / 100m butterfly, 50m / 100m freestyle
- Swim club: Hamburger Swimming Club from 1879 R.V.
- Height: 185 cm
- Weight: 80 kg
BIGGEST SUCCESSES
- A total of 41 titles at the German Championships
- 17 European Championship medals
- 8 World Cup title
- World record 50m butterfly short course (21,80 seconds, World Cup Berlin, 2009)
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We will provide english subtitles for our videos within the next days.
Best regards
Don’t mix up Steffen (the flyer) with his younger brother Marcus (the Im’er)!
Is there a version with english subtitles anywhere?
No, there isn`t a version with english subtitles. What do you want to know? Perhaps I can help you with a translation? Don’t hesitate to ask!
The German selection process is somewhat of a sham. It leaves no room for their athletes to train on a long wavelength because they make them hit the standard so many times.
The preliminary standards are the biggest joke. One year Diebbler was short course world champion in the 100 IM and didn’t even swim the 200 IM at that same short course world’s due to a failure to make the standard in prelims at German Nationals.
Short Course World Champion and broke the World Record, to boot.