Marina Mohnen

Marina Mohnen

Marina Mohnen
Personal information
Nationality  Germany
Born 31 October 1978
Sport
Country Germany
Sport Wheelchair basketball
Disability class 4.5
Event(s) Women's team
Club RSC Köln
S. Stefano Sport
Coached by Holger Glinicki
Achievements and titles
Paralympic finals 2008 Summer Paralympics
2012 Summer Paralympics

Marina Mohnen (born 31 October 1978) is a 4.5 point wheelchair basketball player, who plays for RSC Köln in Germany, and previously played for S. Stefano Sport in Italy. She also played with the German national team that won the European title in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011 and was runner-up in 2013. It was also runner-up at the IWBF World Championship in Birmingham in 2010. She won a silver medal at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. The team was voted 2008 Team of the Year in disabled sports, and President Horst Köhler presented it with Germany's highest sports award, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt (Silver Laurel Leaf). President Joachim Gauck awarded the team a second Silver Leaf after it won the gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

Biography

Marina Mohnen in Birmingham in July 2010

Marina Mohnen was born in Bitburg on 31 October 1978.[1][2] Mohnen majored in economics and works for the Bundesakademie für öffentliche Verwaltung (Federal Academy of Public Administration), a sports funding body, in Brühl.[2] "Wenn das Nationalteam ruft," she says, "werde ich freigestellt." ("When the national team calls, I am available.")[3]

Mohnen began playing basketball when she was eleven, but in 1999 she suffered a severe anterior cruciate ligament injury.[2][4] She took up wheelchair basketball as a 4.5 point player,[1][2] initially playing for her home town team in Bitburg, but she subsequently moved to Koblenz, then to Bonn, and then to Cologne, where she now lives again after a stint in Italy.[2] As part of RSC Köln from 2004 to 2009, she played an important role in the rise of the team. She then moved to the Italian club S. Stefano Sport in Santo Stefano,[5] playing in Italy from 2009 to 2011, after which she returned to RBC Köln.[3]

Mohnen joined the German national team in 2005.[2] They went on to win European Championships in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2011. They were bronze medallists at the World Championships in Amsterdam in 2006,[2] and silver medallists at the World Championships in Birmingham in 2010.[6][7]

In September 2008, Mohnen participated in the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, her first, but the German team was beaten in the gold medal game by the United States, and took home Paralympic silver medals.[8] After the Paralympics, the team's performance was considered impressive enough for it to be named the national "Team of the Year", and it received the Silver Laurel Leaf, Germany's highest sporting honour, from German President Horst Koehler.[9] Mohnen beat Olympic gold medallists Britta Heidemann, Marion Rodewald and Oksana Chusovitina, and long-distance runner Sabrina Mockenhaupt, to take the title of Cologne's Sportswoman of the Year for 2008.[10]

Mohnen was part of the team that won the European Championship for the sixth time in a row in Nazareth 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.[11][12] Mohnen was captain of the team in London. In the gold medal match in London, the team faced the Australia women's national wheelchair basketball team,[13] who had defeated them 48–46 in Sydney just a few months earlier,[14] in front of a capacity crowd of over 12,000 at the North Greenwich Arena,[13] that included Mohnen's mother Kati and sister Sonja.[2] The German team had been undefeated up to that point, but had started slowly in its games against the United States and China, winning both games by six-point margins, and seemed to play their best basketball only in the final minutes of a game.[15] They defeated the Australians 44–58 to win the gold medal,[13] the first that Germany had won in women's wheelchair basketball since 1984, a 28 year period.[16] Mohnen contributed eleven points.[2]

They were awarded the Silver Laurel Leaf by President Joachim Gauck in November 2012,[17] and were named Team of the Year for 2012.[16] Bitburg honoured Mohnen by entering her name into the Golden Book of the City.[2]

In July 2013 the team lost the European Championship to the Netherlands before a home crowd of 2,300 in Frankfurt by a point, 56-57.[18]

Achievements

Awards

Notes

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Marina Mohnen". Official site of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Archived from the original on 26 May 2013. Retrieved 30 March 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 2.9 2.10 "Rollstuhlbasketballerin Marina Mohnen: Bitburg ist stolz auf das Goldmädchen" (in German). volksfreund.de. Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 ""Wir haben ja keine Wahl": Marina Mohnen peilt fünften EM-Titel an". Rolling Planet (in German). 4 July 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  4. ↑ Hermann Josef Fuchs (7 September 2008). "Olympian Marina Mohnen from Matzen". Bitburg-Matzen (in German).
  5. ↑ "Drei Nationalspielerinnen zieht es zur kommenden Saison ins Ausland". Netzathleten Magazin (in German). 3 October 2009. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Germany Women". British Wheelchair Basketball. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "World Championships - Results". International Wheelchair Basketball Federation. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Joisten, Bernd (20 October 2010). "Edina Müller: "Ich bin ein Mensch, der nach vorn blickt"". General-Anzeiger (in German). Retrieved 5 February 2012.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Bundespräsident Köhler ehrt 132 Sportlerinnen und Sportler mit dem Silbernen Lorbeerblatt" (in German). [Deutscher Segler Verband]]. Retrieved 16 May 2014.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Kölns Sportler des Jahres 2008" (in German). Retrieved 11 April 2014.
  11. ↑ "Nu Nguyen-Thi darf nicht mit: Holger Glinicki benennt Kader für die Paralympics". Rolling Planet (in German). 12 June 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  12. ↑ "Härtetest in Australien: Platz zwei für Team Germany". Rolling Planet (in German). 22 July 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2014.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 "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.
  14. ↑ Mannion, Tim (21 July 2012). "Victory for Rollers and Gliders as London Awaits". Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  15. ↑ "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.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 "Rollstuhlbasketballerinnen sind Mannschaft des Jahres" (in German). HSV-Rollstuhlsport. 25 November 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Verleihung des Silbernen Lorbeerblattes" (in German). Bundespräsidialamt. 7 November 2012. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Rollstuhlbasketball-EM: Deutsche Damen nach über einem Jahrzehnt entthront". Rolling Planet (in German). 6 July 2013. Retrieved 29 March 2014.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 "Chronology of Events in the Development of Wheelchair Basketball in Europe". International Wheelchair Basketball Federation Europe. Retrieved 12 April 2014.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 "Goldenes Buch: Palavern bei Sekt ist nicht ihr Ding". Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger (in German). 4 February 2009. Retrieved 6 February 2012.
  21. ↑ "Nu Nguyen-Thi darf nicht mit: Holger Glinicki benennt Kader für die Paralympics". Rolling Planet (in German). 12 June 2012. Retrieved 17 February 2012.
  22. ↑ "2014 WWWBC: Germany". Wheelchair Basketball Canada. Retrieved 28 June 2014.