And that was just so important. You get there and say, I did it. And then the guys cheer and say, well done. And you have a flight that has to happen. It was simply the luck of actually being back in your old life. And the body cooperates. Thanks, dear body. And the cancer cooperates. The cancer allows it. Paragliding was vital there. Podz
Lu-Glidz, the Lu-Glidz podcast.
Stories from the cosmos of paragliding.
Today with Gerhard Leinauer and I am Lucian Haas.
Anyone who frequently watches sports TV channels like the old DSF, then Sport1, and today Eurosport, knows him. Gerhard Leinauer is a veteran reporter who doesn't cover football, but accompanies other interesting sports like ski jumping, mountain biking, ice hockey, or sailing as an emotional commentator. In this episode 152 of Podz-Glidz, we explore the question of why paragliding doesn't make it onto television more often. Gerhard would be perfectly suited as a host, as he himself has been going up into the air regularly for 30 years. However, the 61-year-old doesn't pursue the flying with any sporting ambition. For him, the focus is on the pure joy of leaving the world and all its worries behind.
Flying gives him the strength to find new courage again and again in his fight against cancer.
Since you're listening to the podcast, why not become a supporter of Podz-Glidz? It's explained very simply on the Lu-Glidz Gleitschirm-Blog, specifically on the Förder page.
Gerhard, how long have you been a sports presenter now? Since...
I've been doing this job for over 30 years and it's a dream job. It's a dream job. It's a dream job. It's a dream job for me that I never actually intended to do, but it really developed into a dream job and I hope that I can actually do it for a long time now, even at 60.
years. During all that time you were a sports presenter for the various TV channels, most recently Eurosport, did you ever moderate or commentate on a paraglider event at some point?
No, I haven't. I never had the opportunity because it wasn't on television. I also had a show back in the 2000s on DSF with some other crazy people called Magic Sports. We tried to make sports like that—called fun sports back then—big and bring them into the spotlight a bit. Mountain biking, for example, was the theme. Everyone was crazy about mountain biking. We had the World Cup, and I actually tried to do that with the paraglider World Cup at the time. With Uli Wiesmann. Uli Wiesmann lived around the corner from me, well, mostly around the corner in the direction of Garmisch, so I was friends with him and I tried it, and he was in the studio and we always tried to somehow promote paragliding, which of course wasn't easy.
There were no small cameras. How do you film paragliding? How do you film a World Championship? And we tried all sorts of things, but nothing ever really took off. I
I mean, that was a long time ago, back when there were no GoPros or anything like that. Wouldn't it actually be an idea, or is there not a possibility, to say that today we actually have the technical means and paragliding should actually provide such fascinating, TV-friendly images that you could really bring it onto television?
Yes, absolutely. Let's remember the beginning of the X-Alps, the Red Bull X-Alps. Red Bull really went all out there. With the start at Geisberg. A live broadcast on ServusTV. That's the in-house station in Salzburg for Red Bull. Not as direct anymore, but back then. And they also reported live from the stations. But it was brilliantly done. Really great from a craftsmanship standpoint, great from a technical standpoint. But it didn't draw any crowds. It was just our community, our paragliding community that watched it and thought it was great. And then people didn't actually follow it further. I really watched that back then with a bit of envy, that the colleagues were able to take over the moderation, to do the commentary.
I thought, man, I'll do it myself and I'd love to do it so much. And I thought it was super, super great. But nobody was interested. To put it really as it is. And now there's the opportunity, and you're saying it, of course also with the... Well, of course you can't send a helicopter or a drone into the PWC crowd now. That's obviously not possible. But there are so many other possibilities. Just look at these fantastic YouTube videos that exist during the X-Alps or after the X-Alps. You could put all of those one-to-one as a magazine on the TV station. And I'm sure that those who filmed them, be it a Gretel Mauer or a Patrick von Kähnel, whatever their names are, offered them to TV stations as well.
But nothing, absolutely nothing. I'm at a loss, too. I don't know,
why. Right now, the Vendée Globe is also running, a sailing race around the world. And there's a German in it, Boris Herrmann. And I'm constantly reading something about him. And I also see on various TV channels and online stations and whatnot, there are always short clips of the Vendée Globe and the live tracking and other stuff like that. And I always think, okay. Yeah. He's somewhere at the South Pole, traveling way out there. And yet, in the end, he and the entire race somehow manage to make it onto television. And then I think, paragliding should actually exert the exact same kind of fascination as a sailing race. Very, very good comparison, Lucian.
Very good. Exactly. He's a hero, a sudden rising hero, Boris Herrmann. He was actually just short of third place in the last Vendée Globe. Just short of victory. Suddenly, he was everyone's topic of conversation, and then, just 100 kilometers from the finish line, he actually collided with a fishing cutter. And that was also all anyone could talk about. Suddenly, Boris Herrmann and sailing with these special, high-tech boats became a matter of media interest. Eurosport actually jumped on that and, last year—so 2024—they did the manned Vendée Globe, the Ocean Race. That was also Boris Herrmann with a crew. There were five of them: four crew members and one onboard reporter.
And the onboard reporter sails along, but his primary job is to broadcast everything he records to the world. He has drones, he throws them out during the storm and controls them. Incredible footage. And that onboard reporter distributes it. And then Eurosport said, we'll make a show out of that too. Wow, the Ocean Race. They start in Cape Town, go around the corner once, and they're gone. How do you make a live broadcast out of that? That worked well because they let them sail around the harbor a bit. And it was spectacular when they reached the foyers, great shots. And then they were gone. So, they actually disappeared somewhere into the Polar Sea.
And we had those. And in between, we even did a magazine show, an hour with the footage taken on board, which was super spectacular. But even that wasn't really what was attractive to the viewers, what would have brought in the ratings and did. It was a huge production effort. But the viewers were just like, "Yeah, whatever." And that's exactly where we're getting to the topic. My plight is, I'm anything but a footballer and I'm anything but a football reporter. But we tried everything to somehow get a hold of football, but we never managed it.
He just does it, he just puts a lid on all the other sports for us. It's really bad and
difficult.
Let me flip the sport. Let's turn it around. With a different question.
Does it perhaps also have advantages that paragliding isn't really in the spotlight of sports media? Exactly. Yes.
I personally find the increasing competition coverage difficult. I was a subscriber to Cross Country, that British magazine, for many years. And it has taken on more and more forms. Now I'm even reporting on the Walk and Fly. The Hike and Fly competition that takes place somewhere back in the mountains. Then there's one that lasts two days. Then there's one for those who tie their shoes on the right. Then there's one for only those who fly B-gliders. And then it's reported on. And I tell myself, people, I'm not interested. Let's just do our Hike and Fly. It's wonderful. But not every competition.
What speaks against that, of course, is that I catch myself. I follow the Red Bull X Alps with tracking and all that. That contradicts it again. But that is also a traditional event by now, one that people enjoy following because it's also spectacular. But all the others, including PWC. It's nice, great what they do and super. But difficult. It's nice when people fly to Brazil for the XContest to win the XContest.
That has nothing to do with the DHV XContest anymore, more or less. And to say, okay, we're in our country and those who fly the furthest, who collect the most points, gather here. Great. But for that, everything is on the line. To let yourself fly and to say, the main thing is I get points and the main thing is I cover 500 kilometers of distance just to get as many points as possible. There, I am...
I'd call you out on that. You already mentioned that you're a paraglider too. But if I'm hearing you correctly right now, you don't actually see flying as a sport at all.
Caught.
Caught. Because I... as a teenager, I always saw flying with my own eyes, like it was unreachable for us. It was incredible that we could lift ourselves into the air. And then I actually did this glider course in 1986 and had this experience for the first time. Oh, I can actually do it. I'm losing my legs from the ground and I can fly. What the Schneider of Ulm and the Wright brothers tried to do, with more or less success. We are the generation that can fly. And I was so into this flying and then had the glider, which actually became too complicated for me because it was too bulky to transport.
And when paragliding came along, I switched to paragliding immediately because I had this feeling, like I have a pack on my back and I'm hiking up the mountain. Actually, even back then, with hike & fly, without a gondola or with very little gondola, I'd hike up the mountain and fly down. And that's what always fascinated me about flying. And even now. I'm up there, I don't go on a specific route or, if it's possible, I'll go a bit off the beaten path, a bit here and there. But I want to look down from above, and that view, it's unforgettable, it stays with you, that view of looking down at the earth from above—sometimes, when I'm searching too much for thermals or trying to ride out some of the convergences we have in the valley to get somewhere, I land and think to myself, man, you didn't look at the mountains once, not once at the main ridge, not once at the flatlands, not once at the lake.
You're just busy listening to and watching your vario and looking straight ahead, wondering where the cloud could be and where the thermals might be. And then I land and think to myself, man,
That's a shame, a shame. I find it interesting that on one hand, as a sports moderator, you're very performance-oriented; you pay attention to that and constantly report on people where it's all about what places they get, how far they jump, or how far they fly. Like, you've seen ski jumping or ski flying, which you just moderated for the Four Hills Tournament, and so on. It's always about performance. And then, for you, paragliding is such a non-performance story. Have you really never had your own performance ambitions? In fact, no. In fact,
Really no, because I separate this sport from this enjoyment. And the enjoyment outweighs so much, so I don't say I have to deliver performance here too. I tried it with my paraglider buddies who fly better than I do, who also go on cross-country flights. And I'm a total cross-country failure. I don't get very far and I'm still amazed that people have managed those 100 kilometers, those 300-kilometer triangles. How do they do that? But it's not my intention. It's not my priority that I have up there.
Very, very strange. It's enough for me to spend two and a half hours in the Hausberg thermals, then fly a bit further from the left to the right thermals—sure, a little further—let's say 20 kilometers for a round trip. I'm completely satisfied with that because I had the time to enjoy this flight. And that's just, I think, after 30, almost 40 years, so ingrained in me that I no longer put it into a performance category. Maybe it's also because I'm constantly confronted with that win-loss reporting in my job.
That means the sports commentator Gerhard Leinauer is basically a different person than the pilot Gerhard Leinauer.
Yes, yes. I mean, really. I couldn't lose this fascination with flying—this fascination that you're a human being who can fly. That's still the fascination behind it that I don't, as I said, just focus on the sport, the route, where's the next thermal, how much can I do, and how long am I allowed to, how long have I been in the air today? Have I hit three hours now or something? No. No, I can't get into that old head of mine anymore.
Did you ever combine the two in any way? In the sense that, as a sports presenter, you're sure to have traveled the world because there are sports events everywhere, and the presenters, at least it used to be like that, had to be there in person. Today, with online media, you can probably commentate from home sometimes. But when you traveled that far around the world, did you take the paraglider with you to say, in the breaks, maybe I can have a little adventure somewhere?
Yes. Back then, when we had this show Magic Sports, we were always, in my dream job, doing one thing on top of another. You're a travel reporter. You can actually make your money in places where others go on vacation, and you can capture the most beautiful places in this world in a program. Especially because back then I was a bit, well,
extraordinary. I did many sports. I grew up with canoeing. I had one of the first mountain bikes, and I was also a paraglider, and that was all quite exotic. So the show was built on the idea that Leinauer does all of this, can do it all himself, and hosts it at the same time. And the priority was always, I want to have my paraglider with me. And because the paragliding theme is everywhere, you can fly everywhere, which was also the case. Then you do a segment like, in Cyprus you do this and that and dive. But in Cyprus, there's also a cliff over the entire excavation site.
You can start there beautifully. Great shots. South Africa. South Africa Lions Head. You can start somewhere there too. So I drag my paraglider there and can start somewhere there as well.
That's all well and good. However, the limiting factor with a travel magazine like that wasn't, "Oh, I'm going to fly Lions Head now. I'm going to fly for an hour and a half or as long as I can. Two hours. Or Babadag in Turkey. Great, wonderful." Instead, it's about getting the shots in the can. The shots in the can. That means zip, zip, fast, fast. We don't have time. Because we have to move on. We have to get from the paraglider at Lions Head in Cape Town to Gansbaai for white shark diving. So, white shark diving. Fast, fast, fast. And so on. That's how the day is structured. And I didn't get anything from my paraglider. I only had one takeoff. We film that. And then a little bit in the air. But then you have to land quickly.
Somewhere. Because then we have to move on. Regardless. So it's basically like paying for a bit of paragliding. That wasn't bad. I don't want to
...as bad as it actually was. But it shows that journalistic paragliding might not be what you'd want. Exactly. So it still has to remain, as I said, a matter of enjoyment for me. How has your approach to flying changed over the years? Or has it really always stayed the same?
For a long time, I was like a solo entertainer. I'd go to the mountains alone. And I'd go flying. I avoided the thermals. I actually avoided the thermals. Oh, it's bumpy. I have to land. And because I was alone. Around here in the Bergische Alpen. The most beautiful launch sites were like that. And hike and fly wasn't really a thing yet. And I only ever had the hiking in my head. And I could just head back down on the paraglider in such a beautiful, enjoyable way. And then in 2017, I met two guys, older guys my age.
On the way up, too. I didn't know the path that well anymore. And they were there. And we got into the Ratschen and then reached the summit, and we chatted so much that we didn't even notice the fog coming into the valley from the right and the left. Then we actually flew straight into this fog. Something you really shouldn't have done anymore. Anyway, we really became friends through that experience. And then they said they were in the paraglider group. Heinz and Guido. Those were the two, the paraglider group. We're a few people who gather every now and then. It's called Moin Fliegen. So, flying tomorrow in Bergisch. And we were there with Siggy and Stefan.
A few people. And they are... as I said, the better pilots. And I had to pull myself together a bit more. To stay in the air longer too. And not just to process thermals, but to stay up longer so I could fly with them. Which I more or less managed to do. And I also got myself a High-B glider. Because I thought, with a High-B glider, everything goes better. Which actually was really good. I also did a lot of research. And now I can... keep up reasonably well.
Brigitte and Heinz fly two-liners now. I won't be able to keep up with that. But with Siggy and Stefan... they're a bit calmer. I can keep up with them. It's simply the nice company. And a friendship where you just go up the mountain. And chat. And talk about everything under the sun. That's really the beautiful part.
Is flying still that important? Or is it more about this sense of community? And flying is just the icing on the cake?
Fifty-fifty. It's the community. Great conversations on the way up the mountain. Mountaineering is already kind of in my blood anyway. And then, of course, there's the anticipation of the flight. That's already hike to fly, primarily. Because we choose the days when it's flyable. So we don't just go into the mountains for the sake of it and take our gear with us to see if it works. It's the intention that we're going to fly. But in winter, it's actually just the glide path. Now in the snow, wonderful. But it's the same when we fly longer in the summer. And also going out for thermals. But that's really just such a pleasant...
And for me too, now in my difficult life situation. My friends are very, very important points of reference for me.
You just said yourself, a difficult life situation. In 2020, you were diagnosed with a rare form of lymph node cancer. How big of a shock was that for you?
The huge shock. Because you're immortal. I mean, you're born immortal and you stay immortal. And then, suddenly, you get a cancer diagnosis.
It's really, yeah, obviously brutal. But then this diagnosis comes. And then I read in some little slip of paper, in some hospital leaflet, a guide, that what they have now, roughly, is life-changing. And I was like, no, it's not. I'm not going to change my life now and I don't want to change it. It's something completely different when you're suffering from a type of cancer that... causes you pain, that makes you frail and really ties you to a bed or to instruments. That's something completely different. I had this form now, which can certainly be treated, which can be radiated. And I said, I don't want to change my life because I have such a happy life.
I have the dream job. And I want—that was actually the point—I want to keep flying. I mean, flying is so important to me, and it's actually vital for my life, that I never want to give it up. That's how I deal with this illness.
How does flying even fit in with a cancer treatment like that? I mean, I imagine it's quite taxing. You said you had radiation, probably a whole series of them. Something like that weakens the body too. Can you still go flying after that, or is it more like, okay, I have half a year of cancer treatment now and I'm looking forward to being able to go flying again at some point?
Radiation is technically flawless nowadays; it's really targeted, and then the thing gets "smothered" out. That doesn't put a strain on you. You then have to do a follow-up chemo to make sure everything is really wiped out. And that chemo is what's taxing. You stay in the hospital for a week, then two weeks at home, then another week in the hospital; you lie there and red liquid actually flows into your body. It's real poison. You can see that it's poison. And then you lie there, which of course weakens you. And naturally, you develop this—I developed this will to endure. I said, okay, the chemo has to happen now. I accept that.
Because it's also in my body, that the evil, the evil is also in my body. So I have to accept that too, because it's my body. I love my body. Everything is fine, and the evil is in there too. That's hard to believe, but then to say, I accept you too, you evil lymphoma in there. But please, just go away again. And also, it can't be anything life-changing, and show strength. I also have a very strong family behind me. My wife, as hard as that is for outsiders, but then giving me strength. And I asked everyone, not "God's will" now and whining and saying "for God's sake," but "give me strength," my parents say.
Give me strength. Because the parents, of course, would immediately say, God, no, I don't want that. Instead, I need all of your strength now. From my son, from my wife, from everyone. And that is also very important, when you feel that around you. And then paragliding actually comes into play. And my friends, who sent pictures during this phase. They are in Bassano and flying and reported back to me with the question, is it okay for you? Or does it bring you down? I say no, not at all. Instead, I want to see what I can and want to do again. So, you are in Bassano now or you are in our mountains and flying. Wonderful. I don't envy you, but it pushes me, it builds me up,
to be able to do that again afterwards. And actually, I was physically weakened, coming out of chemo, and they dragged me up the mountain and said, "So, we're going up the mountain now. And if you're up for it, if it's okay, you come along." I said, "Yeah, I'll give it a try. We might have to turn back, or I might have to turn back." And then, for the last quarter of the mountain, they really motivated me. Like an athlete says, "Come on, you can do it, you can do it. We'll go ahead, it's okay for you, and you go at your own pace, but you can do it. We'll meet at the summit." And that was just so important. You get there and say, "I did it." And then the guys cheer and say, "Hell yeah." And you have a flight that has to happen, it has to happen, because I couldn't stand up anymore.
Running down
wouldn't have been an alternative.
Would not have been an alternative. What he then said to Heike, I
had the
Always fly with the advisors; you have to have reserves left up there so that you can come down, so that you can land. It wasn't just that it wasn't a forward start. Because those few steps, a forward start, are difficult, but a nice back launch and out of the stand, perfect. That's roughly how it was. But that was just luck, actually being back in the old life. And the body is cooperating. Thanks, dear body. And the cancer is cooperating. The cancer is letting it happen.
paragliding was
vital there.
During that first ascent, where you said they basically pulled you up or motivated you, but once you were at the top, you wouldn't have been able to come back down. Did you have something like a plan B? Or did you really just leave it all to chance?
I really left it to chance. I mean, it became pretty clear quite soon that the wind was hitting the south slope, that the lift was really pulling up and that it was going to stay that way. And by then, you've studied all the wind models, and nothing goes wrong. A bit naive, of course. Sure, something could go wrong. But I just left it to chance. Yeah, I could have dragged myself down. That would have been possible too. But I didn't have a plan B. It was more like, plan A has to work. Not that it had to work by any means necessary, but I just assumed it would work. Because I really thought, I really thought I had very caring and considerate paraglider friends.
And that they would have made sure I got back down safely.
Well, you haven't just had cancer once, but if I remember correctly, I think it first appeared in 2020. That was treated. Then it came back a year later, and then again in 2023. When you keep having that, you start to doubt whether paragliding and things like that can still have a place in your life in the long run? No, no. Not at all.
Doubt. Really, not a single doubt.
The second time, the recurrence, as it's called to stick with the medical terminology, that was associated with a fear of death.
You don't really know what true fear of death is. We don't. You have fear. You have a bit of fear if you have an accident or something. But fear of death. To get a diagnosis of a recurrence again, you have it again. And with that, it was clear that the chemo I described before hadn't helped. And then you realize, okay, this is the end if the chemo doesn't help. It was a different manifestation, thank God. It was a completely different type of cancer. In that direction, but it had something to do with the blood. It's not leukemia, but it's another variant.
Leukemia is a malformation of the blood in the bone marrow when the blood comes out. In my case, it's a malformation of the blood outside of it. But that is very treatable with stem cell therapy. They take your own stem cells, they extract them, and then they administer them back to me. And that, in the eyes of the doctors, really has a good chance of curing it, or at least palliatively, of letting me live with it as long as possible—that works. And of course, you cling to that. And then you say again, despite everything, I want to continue my life like this. That's the goal. I want to continue my life like this. I want to keep doing my job and I actually want to keep paragliding, because that brings me so much.
There, you have that exact same anchor you had the first time, which really, yeah, moved you forward in the survival mode. You have to transfer that again, of course, to the second type of cancer. You have to say, okay, it goes on just the same now. I can do my job again and I can also again and want to again go paragliding, because it gives me so much. Out of gratitude, I've cried up there in the air every now and then. I was just in the air and out of gratitude for having survived this, for having survived it, the tears came. The worry session lasted an hour. I was tormented up there for half an hour.
And that's when I realize just how important it is for me to be up there, dangling, seeing the earth from above, and doing what I love. I noticed that when you have those kinds of emotions, of course. And I don't want to lose that in any way, and I never did.
Is paragliding sort of part of the therapy for you then?
Yes, actually. When they gave me the stem cells again, I was in the hospital for three weeks because they first have to flatten your whole body and then transplant your own cells back in. And it's important, everything now, in addition to the family. The family who visits and stays in touch, my wife, who gives me so much strength, and then there were also the friends who would tell me, Lucy and Wolfi are in Bassano doing this and that. And it was the same picture again. You lie there for three weeks and you don't envy your friends for a single minute who are now in the air or in Bassano, but you also say there,
I want to go back there. And that gives you so much strength, this will, this will to want to go back to where you were again and again for 30 years—in the air, on the mountain, sitting in the sun, having a snack, having good conversations, and then flying down, landing contentedly and having a beer on the ground. That is such a fulfilling day, it works therapeutically. Just the thought of it alone. Not knowing if I can do it, I want to keep doing it, I can keep doing it, but just the thought of it—when my wife tells me to write to friends or send pictures, I have this vision that I'll be doing that again soon, and that doing it is the therapy.
What do your doctors say to that? I mean, when you say that, sort of, the first thing I do after chemo is run up the mountain and then fly down—probably a bit of an exaggeration.
No, that's exactly how it was. So the doctors prepared for that—really great doctors, by the way, in this day and age, it's unbelievable how empathetic they all are and as a patient, you really feel like they're taking you by the hand. At some point, they realized what my will to survive is and what my survival strategy is in this whole construct. That started when I said, well, I'm there this week, but on Friday I'd have to leave at noon because ski jumping is at 4 p.m. Then he's finished. So you know, you're sick for about... You didn't really put it like that, but do you really mean it?
Then I say, yes, I'm a freelancer and it's just that we're very specialized in our positions and few people can actually do it. So, now also in Switzerland. I said I had to get out because the next day, on Saturday, I had to go to Switzerland to commentate on sailing there. To Switzerland? Yes, I did, I really had to, and then they slowly realized that it's important to me, that I have to be there at that time, I want that job, that it's important for me. And then they accepted it, and then it came to paragliding, which, you fly a paraglider? No, that's not possible now, because we don't need that at all if you break your bone, that's going to delay the therapy.
Then I said, yeah, but I need it, dear people, it's so important to me. Yes, you can't do that, you can't even get up the mountain without the gondola, I tell you.
I managed to do that last time, I'm doing it now too, and it works, and I need it. And they were already shaking their heads at first, but then they really saw that I need this as therapy, both as a job and as paragliding, and they grew with it. I mean, they'd never had someone like that before, someone saying, "I want to go there, I have to get out, because I want to go to the mountain or because I have to go to my job." They'd never had that. And now they have a completely new case in me and have seen how I deal with it, how I live with it, and how strong it makes me. They always said, "Yes, you have such a great constitution, that's why you're handling this therapy so well." I don't get sick, I don't have to break down,
I'm standing on my own two feet. That's not often the case, and they saw that I can still do that, that I can simply leave the clinic on my own two feet and then come back and "brave," in quotation marks, health—not exactly, but I brave it—and then they already knew, there are connections. There are connections between this leisure—job—activity and coping with the illness.
That means the job and flying give you strength. Yes. Has it changed because of this cancer?
has your experience of flying changed because of this cancer? I mean, not the "taking off" part and all that with your friends, but where you actually say that you experience flying itself differently now, more intensely, or whatever it was?
Yes, I'm closer to God.
No, not that. It's still the same. As I said, the emotional outbursts happen more often. Like, really, just let the... I mean, hands up, brake lines, and just fly straight into the sun. Enjoy those rays that mean life and fly towards them and let the thermals out, or don't aim for the next slope or the lee slope or anything, just fly now. And that keeps coming up. In all this form, in all this flying, where you actually, of course, check that it's not wobbling, that the glider stays open and so, when it's bad. But then, this moment has to come, it has to be there.
This pausing, "pausing" in quotation marks, looking down and also crying. And being able to really cry up there like that, that's happening more often.
The enjoyment of flying is the same.
Can you even cry more easily in the air than on the ground? Yes.
Yes. Actually, I did. When it was bad, of course, I cried in my wife's arms. Then the tears came on the sofa and I cried like a lost dog. That was already... that was actually the cancer crying. In the air, it was more like crying out of gratitude. So it wasn't despair then, it was really out of gratitude.
So, as far as I understand it, hosting is the job, that's your life, and it's very emotional how you do it. And you fly, and that's also very emotional for you. Is there something, if you had to say, okay, this cancer forces me to step back somewhere. What could you give up on more easily? The job.
Indeed, I'm saying that so lightly now, I don't know what it would be like without it. My friends, for instance, left their jobs early; they were managers at BMW and such. Really good jobs, but they were saved early on and are coping well with it. But that was a completely different construct. It was subordinate, with a boss and all that. I've been free, like a free bird, in my work since I started. To step away now and say, "Oh, I don't actually need the work at all." I'm focusing more on flying, but of course, it keeps coming up that you say, "Come on, take it easy now. You had the illness, you survived it. Now get in your bus and go to the mountains more often. Stay there for a night or two and just focus on the mountains and on what you like to do, like paddling or something."
And especially flying. And you don't need the job for that. I don't know. I don't know, but to your question, I'd really say that if I had the choice, I could actually do without the job.
You're married to the presenter Alexandra Pau in Polzin. Does she fly too?
No. No. So, no thinking about it and no encouraging her. She has a severe knee injury from handball, from her handball career, and that's always been a deterrent, even when skiing. And even when we go for long walks, it's really such a hurdle—not that paragliding is primarily about the knee, there's no correlation there, except for the takeoff or the landing. But still, it's just this: I'm doing something that could damage my knee, because it would be irreparable if she were to tear her ACL again. It would be really difficult, all the doctors say. That's why she tends to skip things like that and lets me do it.
Even now, she's often worried about me, really. But she says I can't really say anything other than letting you do it. So that's never the issue, because I see how much it means to you. That has been such a very, very clear statement time and again. And it's really powerful that she just lets me go without any fuss and says, go ahead, do your thing. I have work anyway or I'll do other things.
Your wife sees that flying does something for you. Your doctors see that flying does something for you. You see it anyway. So maybe at some point paragliding will be upgraded to a new form of therapy.
Yes, but it would be important for the health insurance if they were to pay for it. That would be cool. A new glider. I would need a new glider. Dear health insurance, this is a real therapy. Look here. You won't have to pay for chemotherapy anymore, which is infinitely more expensive. Pay me for a new glider and everything is fine.
Yeah, that would be way cheaper than any kind of immunotherapy or other treatments where a single shot can sometimes cost thousands or even tens of thousands of euros. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Today, as we're recording this podcast, is January 2nd, 2025. Do you have anything special planned for this year?
First and foremost, it's important to maintain the status quo. So let's go from the inside out. For me, it's important that it stays this way. The doctors found during the last check that there's nothing left. Not a single cancer cell can be detected. So nothing at all that would somehow promote it, because it really was in the blood cells, my abnormality. There's nothing left there. This status quo, please, please,
stay like this for as long as possible, but for this year, that would be enough.
And then, yeah, of course, regarding external wishes, it's about making sure that things in Germany don't stay at the status quo, but also don't just stay as they are—it needs to move forward, and then globally, out in the world, a lot of things should change. But that's what I've set out for myself.
Yeah. And do you still have some kind of aviation dream that you'd like to make happen?
Yeah, last time I trekked up into the snow with my buddy Heinz, we were at the Zugspitze. And we were kind of fantasizing, yeah, about flying from the Zugspitze. Like how Mike Hawker used to get into thermals back then, with flying. We're flying from the Zugspitze. And I say, yeah, but I read somewhere back then that the launch site and so on, and he says, no, that's doable now.
That's quite banal for my paraglider pilots who are listening and saying, "Huh, that's a mountain, it's not even 3,000 meters high, fly down." And fly home. Flying home means from the first row of mountains, from the Bergisches Land mountains into the suburbs, so before Munich. There are plenty of fields to land in. That probably causes a shrug for many people right now. That's 40 kilometers as the crow flies. That's so easy to do. But to say, I'm flying away and I'm flying the whole distance I drive out and back in or travel by road bike, I'm flying that from above now, I can see from above, oh, that's that and that's that. And then I get towards Munich and can land right in front of my front door.
That would be the dream. And I've pushed it back from 22 to 23, from 23 to 24, but now 25 is
it's due. For that, however, you'd also have to start doing a bit of cross-country flying, at least.
Gerhard, I hope that you at least get some partial successes there. Maybe you don't have to make it all the way home right away, but at least get in the direction of home, and then you realize, oh, it's working and it keeps going. You have even more fun making progress and moving forward. And apparently, you're a bit of a human bowling pin who always wants to keep going. So I wish you a lot of strength in that, may the cancer really stay far away from you and leave you your freedom, so that you can continue to experience all those little adventures and also the big adventures of life.
Thank you so much. That was very kind of you to say, and yes, you stay healthy too. That's so important, and to everyone listening, stay healthy. And yes, it was truly an honor to be on your podcast. Thanks, Lucia.
Thank you.
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