From the podium to politics
Twelvefold Paralympic gold medallist Verena Bentele is the Federal Government's new Commissioner for the Disabled.
No challenge seems to be too big for Verena Bentele. At the Paralympics she won a total of twelve gold medals in cross-country skiing and biathlon; she has climbed mountains like the Kilimanjaro, and cycled the 540 kilometres from Trondheim to the capital Oslo in Norway on a tandem – in a single day. She has also tried bungee jumping and façade climbing. And all this despite being blinded since birth by a hereditary disease. Now she has taken on a new task. At the suggestion of Andrea Nahles (SPD), Federal Minister for Social Affairs, she has been appointed the Federal Government's Commissioner for the Disabled. She is committed to achieving equal living conditions for people with and without disabilities. The former top sportswoman will be influencing political decisions and taking an active part in drafting legislation at the federal level.
Bentele champions inclusion
"For me, inclusion means people with and without disabilities working together to design a society where everyone has their place and is given support. Over the next few years I would like to use my experience as a blind woman to make a contribution here," Bentele emphasized at her appointment ceremony, which marked a première in two fields at the same time. For one thing it's the first time that a person with a disability has held this post in Germany. For another it's the first time that the commissioner is not a member of the Bundestag (lower house of the German parliament). Verena Bentele has only been politically active for two years. She joined the SPD in 2012 and already supported her party a year later in the Bavarian state election campaign.
Again and again, the former top sportswoman, who was born in 1982, has worked her way into new fields. She grew up with her two older brothers on her parents' organic farm in the Allgäu region, and later studied sport as well as German language and literature in Munich. She has worked as a personal trainer and given lectures. In 2010 she was awarded a Bambi television prize, partly for her ability to motivate people. She doesn't let herself get distracted from her goals. For example, despite her new challenge in Berlin, she is planning another the bike tour of Norway in 2014. And in the autumn she aims to take part in the Munich Marathon.
11th Paralympic Winter Games in Sochi, 7-16 March 2014 in Munich
