He may not yet have been officially nominated by the Austrian Athletics Federation (ÖLV), but one can assume that things are shaping up well for Sebastian Falkensteiner, originally from Lower Austria: So far, he has represented Austria in five World or European Championships and his nomination for the Trail Short at the WMTRC 2023 is to be expected; after all, it takes the scientist a mere 38 minutes to cover a vertical kilometer, while he covers 10 kilometers on even ground in less than 32 minutes.

Interestingly enough, he started out as a tennis player rather than a runner, having trained at his local club in St.Pantaleon-Erla four to five times a week for more than ten years, and despite the fact that he’s always been ambitious, he never envisioned a career as a professional tennis player.

What commenced when he was child was put to an end when he turned into a teen: He suffered from a tennis elbow, which meant that he was in pain whenever he played. During a time when his serves and returns were getting less frequent, he increasingly turned to running. Sebastian Falkensteiner started participating in running competitions at school while still actively playing tennis, and he was always part of the leading field for his respective age group. As his presence at the tennis club kept diminishing he started asking himself how far he would be able to run.

At the age of 21, he ran his first marathon. Only a week later he ran a little further. He completed his first trail run at the Ötscher Mountain Run in 2016 (“I happened to read about it and signed up”). A semester abroad - in Eindhoven in 2016 - brought about a lot of changes. “During this time I was part of the University training group and was actively coached, which improved my time over ten kilometers and led to my first medals,” he says. He won the New Year’s Run (Silvesterlauf) in Linz, came second at the Pesenbachtal run. And when Falkensteiner signed up for the IATF Trailmarathon a year later and crossed the finishing line as Austrian champion, he was not the only one to be taken aback.

Today, Sebastian Falkensteiner is among the elite of Austrian trail and sky running; he is part of the national team and is supported by Dynafit.

His path is not only characterized by tough training units and great achievements but also by recurring physical issues. “My statistics are a success story, however, my medical records speak a different language,” the athlete says. “I have increased my training volume too rapidly, went from zero to 100 km within a week – seen over the period of a year, this simply is too much.” Bone marrow edema were one of the consequences he had to deal with - on the hip, on the femoral head, the ankle, the cuboid bone. However, these weren’t the worst. Falkensteiner sustained a far worse injury during a ski hike in April 2020, when a hidden water puddle presented an obstacle that caused him to twist his left leg and tear pretty much all of his ligaments in the knee and ankle. The drive to the hospital was in vain - he was not admitted due to Corona, so he had to drive home and call an ambulance.

His way back to running required uncounted hours of physiotherapy as well as detours via other disciplines such as cycling and ski hiking, which both remain part of his training routine. Goal-driven rehab and training enabled Falkensteiner to start competing again after 1.5 years, however, “I will not really forgive myself for having had this accident until the end of my days,” he says. “Whenever I step on a stone, I feel a twinge in my foot, knowing full well that I am dealing with phantom limb pains.” Be that as it may, those phantom pains won’t stop Falkensteiner from competing in the Trail Short contest at the World und Mountain Trail Running Championships (WMTRC) Innsbruck-Stubai, taking place from June 6 to 10, 2023.

“It will be a crowning moment of my career to be competing in World Championships in my home country. The WMTRC are a combination of the different running worlds I have moved in so far. But even more so, the WC in Tyrol will help push mountain- and trail running - both locally and abroad.“

Sebastian Falkensteiner is somewhat familiar with the Innsbruck-Stubai region, which will be hosting the title races. After having studied the route and the route profile he thinks that the Trail Short will be just his thing. “I’ll definitely be coming to Tyrol prior to the WC so I can check out the trails in real life.”

Falkensteiner is a PostDoc at the Max-Planck-Institut in Leipzig, where he studies and deals with differential algebra, algebraic geometry and tropical algebra. He plans on eventually leaving the field of theoretical science behind and moving into applied science, but that is not something to ponder during a run as he prefers to delight in the activity of running.