ITF

85 ATLANTA 1996 MEN'S DOUBLES BRONZE M arc-Kevin: We were extremely happy. We beat the No. 2 doubles team in the world, [Paul] Haarhuis and [Jacco] Eltingh, for the bronze medal. And my first thought was, "If we had played like that the day before we would have silver today." We were very happy we got a medal and didn't go out in fourth place. I really wanted to experience an Olympics, and with every round we won I was like, "Okay, we have a realistic chance." And then when we lost 12-10 in the third set for a silver medal against Great Britain we were very disappointed. But then we thought, "Okay we have a chance for bronze," and then it was just amazing. We went to the hockey, we went to the beach volleyball. We saw a couple of things. That was great because we had some distractions and we met with other athletes from the German national team. And we were celebrated, of course, when we came home with the bronze medal. It was just an incredible feeling. Goosebumps. We met with the German Chancellor, Helmut Kohl, and the President, Roman Herzog. It was very funny because when I went up to get honoured, Roman Herzog was surprised I wasn't wearing my hat backwards. I thought that was a very remarkable comment. My children had a theme at school in history that was the Olympics. And so they took my medal to school with them which, of course, was an amazing situation for the school and, of course, for my children to have an original medal to look at. D avid: It's a long time ago but I remember it was an incredible feeling to win a medal, to be a part of this Olympics and everything around it. I have only the best memories of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Your career is maybe 10 or 12 years, you are lucky if you are twice at the Olympics. It was an amazing feeling. I was happy that we won the medal. We had a pretty good draw. We were a little bit unlucky in the semifinals that we lost it. We were a little bit disappointed. The hardest feeling was everything around; the other guys from the German team were watching. We were a little bit under pressure because my friend, he is a swimmer and he won a medal and he was pushing me a little bit. Christian Keller [his swimmer friend] won a medal also in a team. Always when I see on the TV that it's the Olympics, then I look at the medal. Not so often in the years between. When I see it then I can remember, I can run through in my head a little bit what was there, what was happening, how it was in the Olympic Village. It was 1996. My career started in 1992 or 1991. It was at the beginning of my career so they recognised me more, in my hometown and in Germany also. It was a little more you were always being asked about this medal. It changed in this time a little bit. I keep my medal at my home in my living room. I keep it there in a special place. My first thought was, "If we had played like that the day before we would have silver today."

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