Germany’s sports photo 2017 features swimmer Christian Diener

“Swim against the current!” is the title of the German sports photo of the year 2017, a competition awarded by the German publication “Welt am Sonntag”, called the “Sven Simon Prize”. Sven Simon was the pseudonym of Axel Springer jun., the eldest son of the famous German publisher Axel Springer. Springer jun. worked as a photographer until he died in 1980, only 38 years old.  

German photographer Eberhard Thonfeld followed the request of his friend Jörg Hoffmann, former German world class swimmer and now head coach at the German swim Club “Potsdamer SV”, to take a few photos for the public relations work of the Potsdamer swimming club. Thonfeld spent an hour with two German top swimmers, Christian Diener and Tim-Thorben Suck, in the countercurrent system in the training center “Sportpark am Luftschiffhafen” where the photo “Swim against the current” featuring Christian Diener was taken.

Christian Diener is one the the best German backstroke swimmers, he finished seventh at the 2016 Olympic Games and he took silver at the 2014 European LC Championships in the 200m backstroke.  For the 65-year-old photographer from Potsdam, his photographs particularly include “the human being, the athlete, the personality, everything a television camera can not show,” as he told SwimSwam in an interview. On the other hand Eberhard Thonfeld thinks that ” because of the water and the long underwater phases, the dark goggles, swimmers are very anonymized and that the surroundings hide a lot of their personality during the races”.

Eberhard Thonfeld is the first photographer ever to succeed in winning the Sven Simon Prize, worth 10,000 Euros (about 12.400 USD), twice. He received the award for the first time in 2011.

Famous athletes such as Franziska van Almsick (swimming, Germany), Katarina Witt (figure skating, Germany), Dirk Nowitzki (Basketball, Germany, Dallas Mavericks) Nico Rosberg (formula 1, Germany) and Bernhard Langer (golf, Germany) are part of the panel of judges and decide which photo will be voted best of the year.