Franziska grew up in a quite normal protected family. Before the German reunification she lived in a cosy East Berlin appartment close to the wall, together with her father Bernd van Almsick, a civil engineer, her mother Jutta and her elder brother Sebastian. Her parents and her brother have always given her support and protection. Not too many fifteen-year-old girls would claim to have the "best family in the world". Her family, and later on also her boy friend Steffen Zesner, have always been the most important persons in her life. Until early in 1997, when Franziska moved into a condominium in a southern suburb of Berlin that had been built by her father, she stayed with her parents in the Treptow appartment even as a multimillionaire.

Following her brother's example, Franziska started swimming about the age of five. It didn't take long until she outperformed him. Her outstanding talent was discovered and systematically promoted - a common practice in East Germany. She was sent to a training center and attended a youth sports college. Her father once gave her a sticker with the inscription "Barcelona 1992". When she read that she decided that she wanted to go there. Whenever Franziska aimed at a goal, she pursued it with devotion, even as a child. She never did things by halves. Consequently life became hard for the young school girl. She would be the first to leave home in the morning and the last to come back at night, with many hours of training and school in between. Her talent, her ambition, the good support she received, and her consistently hard work soon beared fruit: At the age of 11 she reached 9 first places at the East German "Spartakiade" 1989. Besides all that she also performed well at school - and she could certainly have been excellent under normal circumstances.

The rise of Franziska van Almsick as a swimmer is inseparably linked to the name of Dieter Lindemann, who coached her from 1990 until shortly after the Olympic Games of 1996. His GDR past often exposed him to the cross-fire of criticism and eventually overwhelmed him inescapably in 1997. It is quite typical of Franziska that through all accusations she remained loyal to her coach, whom she owed a lot and who certainly was a kind of father-figure for her.

Source: Franzi Official Web Site