Carlo Thränhardt – track and field athlete and high jump legend. Carlo Thränhardt (57) is regarded as one of the most versatile personalities in German top-class sport. He has been teaching companies the recipes for top performance since the 1990s.
The world and European record holder has been a sought-after key note speaker and motivational speaker at corporate events, conferences, meetings and seminars for decades. Carlo Thränhardt has been on stage at over 500 events, drawing parallels between competitive sport and day-to-day project, management and sales work in companies. In his book “Helden auf Zeit” (“Temporary Heroes”), he provides insights into the lives of athletes during and after a successful career.
Carlo Thränhardt Lecture topics
- Desire for performance – motivation, diligence & willpower
- Sport & business: analogies from competitive sport transferred to the competitive sport of everyday (professional) life
- Raising the bar – the performance principle of high-performance teams
- Achieving goals: peak performance through self-motivation
Thränhardt: “As a high jumper, you have to be like a PUMA: lie around and rest all day and then, when it counts, jump up and bite.”
Carlo Thränhardt first belonged to the ASV Köln sports club, later to the LG Bayer Leverkusen and the OSC Berlin. He won his first international medal with silver at the 1981 European Indoor Championships in Grenoble. He secured his only international title at the 1983 European Indoor Championships when he jumped over 2.32 metres. This was followed by three more silver medals at the European Indoor Championships, in 1984, 1986 and 1987. At the 1986 European Championships, he came third behind Igor Paklin and Sergei Maltschenko.
On 26 February 1988, he set a world indoor record of 2.42 m in the Schöneberger Sporthalle in Berlin, which was also recognised as an outdoor world record as a unique special case, as it meant that Patrik Sjöberg’s record was broken. It was deleted from the outdoor record lists again in 1991, but remained an indoor world record and is still the second-best performance ever achieved indoors after Javier Sotomayor’s world record of 2.43 m from 1989.
Carlo Thränhardt on the crisis in athletics: “We’ve lost our toughness.”
He was German champion in the high jump in 1986 and 1991 and finished runner-up six times. Thränhardt is a two-time Olympian. In 1984 in Los Angeles, when Dietmar Mögenburg won, he came tenth in the final with a jump of 2.15 metres, but had even jumped 2.24 metres in qualifying. He did slightly better in Seoul in 1988, but in a high-class competition he finished seventh with 2.31 m, unable to match the Olympic record of 2.38 m set by the winner Hennadij Awdjejenko.
Carlo Thränhardt: Higher – Better – First!
He ended his active career in 1993 and became a TV presenter, author and increasingly appeared as a key note speaker and guest speaker at companies. His lecture topics included motivation, goals, the desire to perform, fair play (doping) and work-life balance.
On 12 February 2015, Carlo Thränhardt was appointed by the German Tennis Federation to the coaching and support staff of the Davis Cup team as the new fitness and mental coach. He has been coaching some of the best German tennis players at the all-weather sports facility in Munich-Unterföhring for several years. From 1993 to 1996, Carlo Thränhardt was responsible for Boris Becker’s athletics and fitness alongside him.
Book: His book “Helden auf Zeit” is a popular and lasting gift to all participants, with personalised dedications on request. Autographs and photos: After the lecture, Carlo Thränhardt will be available for autographs and personal photos with all participants, e.g. in front of the 2.42m high jump bar as a popular photo motif.