The blind German surfer targeting world cup and Paralympics

"Being active, the opportunity to achieve something for myself, to do sport, to see what I can achieve, also gives me self-confidence and brings me this self-confidence with which I then can go through the world in my everyday life."

Surfboarding is like therapy for Ben Neumann. He is a blind surfer who nurtures his craft at a wave pool in Munich, Germany but realises his dream in the ocean, riding waves of around 2.3 meters high. His family lives in Garmisch-Partenkirchen by the Austrian border, 90 kilometers south of Munich.

"The pool naturally offers a very controlled and predictable environment, which is very pleasant, especially for a blind surfer, because you can work very well on individual technical aspects through this constant repetition," Neumann adds. 

Sound and feeling are the two things he relies on while surfing since sight is not an option for him. He started to lose his sight aged six due to a denetic defect. Aged eight, Neumann had less than two percent of his eyesight and was therefore legally blind. Together with his parents, he started to fight back. He did a lot of sports and continued to ski.

Skier to surfer

Seven years later, age 13, he first got on a surf board.

Neumann says: "It actually happened that I got a voucher for the indoor wave for my 13th birthday in Munich. The first hour went really well and was, above all, a lot of fun. We stuck with it. And then it developed bit by bit."

Now as a 19-year-old he has already won a bronze medal at the World Para Surfing Championships and is hoping for a gold at the 2024 Championships in November in California.

Together with his father who tells him through a headset when and where a wave is coming, he is training for the competition in a newly built surf pool in Munich in southern Germany. 

In October, Neumann won the first surfing competition held on German waves. After the world cup in California, he hopes surfing will be part of the 2028 Paralympics to maybe add a Paralympic medal to his collection too.