Born in 1967 with a congenital heart defect, coupled with a medical prognosis of not living past 30 and never being able to do competitive sports, the start to life was extremely difficult. My childhood was accompanied by constant health problems until my father encouraged me to cycle a little with him. At the age of 14, a velophilic passion began, which could not be extinguished even by a serious accident in 2016, in which the doctors once again predicted that my sporting ambitions would now be finally ended. A little cycling initially turned into 5000km, then 10000km, at peak times up to 20000km and currently still around 13000km/year. I transferred my childlike curiosity into constantly questioning the knowledge taught at school, which ultimately led to the intention of studying natural sciences and sports science. After relevant suspicious experiences in mainstream investigative journalism in the 1990s, doubts about public socio-political reporting and a turn to alternative media platforms began. As a former supporter of the local group of ATTAC and the GREENS in my hometown of Düsseldorf in the 1980s, I note with horror how this party is currently trampling on all the ideals of my founding generation. In this respect, my journalistic work is also politically motivated, so I use my many years of interdisciplinary experience to make a contribution to the critical discourse, which has not taken place in either mainstream journalism or mainstream science in the last four years. My main concern is to protect the basic principles of our democracy and the values of the Basic Law, to which I feel committed and to which I made a vow as a young soldier, which is still valid for me today, against the massive attack by self-proclaimed power elites and to defend their armies of executing ideologues, which are being waged against the human family using very subtle and not immediately transparent means and methods. The weapons I use are common sense and the words of my wonderful German mother tongue.
The name of the platform, SMIRS, is an acronym that stands for “Sports Medicine Information and Research System.” This concept for the training methodological support of high-performance athletes was developed by me in the 1990s and successfully applied in various endurance sports disciplines (cycling, triathlon, long-distance running, biathlon, Nordic combined). In addition to a training methodology based on data analysis, the interdisciplinary approach included biomechanical aspects such as optimizing seating positions in cycling at a time when bike fitting was completely unknown, performance diagnostic analyses, nutritional advice, technical optimization of training equipment and competition sports equipment, as well as sports medical support (preventive and therapeutic) in cooperation with internationally renowned doctors, scientists and various university institutes (e.g. DSHS Cologne, INSEP Paris, UCL Louvain). The basis of the concept, in order to always remain at the cutting edge of technology and science, consists of extensive research in scientific, patent and topic-specific databases according to the proven principle of thesis (null hypothesis), antithesis (alternative hypothesis) and synthesis. The investigative journalistic articles are written exactly according to this pattern; the novelty of the focus reporting on this platform is the linking of topics from alternative sports reporting in a socio-political context. All texts are alternatively conceived in analogue form and digitally transformed manually, excluding the use of mainstream AI such as ChatGPT. I hope you have many thoughtful moments while reading the articles.
Audiatur et altera pars!