Here we go again! The Paralympic Summer Games under the motto ‘Citius, altius, fortius’ (faster, higher, further) started in Tokyo on Tuesday. 14 female and male athletes from TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen are competing at the Paralympics.
One of them is the visually impaired Taliso Engel. The 19-year-old is a big medal hope for Germany in swimming. “My big target at the Paralympics is to end up in the top three in the 100 metre breaststroke. That would be my main aim and it would be a dream come true, ” explained Engel ahead of the games.
The European and World champion from Nuremberg with be the first TSV athlete to compete at the games. On Friday, 27 August, at 09.00 CEST he will take part in the qualifiers for the men’s 400 metre freestyle. The final is at 17.00 CEST on the same day.
We wish all the German Paralympians, above all the athletes from TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen, great success at the summer games in Tokyo.
The TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen athletes at the Paralympics:
Taliso Engel (swimming), Nele Moos (100m/400m), Léon Schäfer (long jump/100m), Johannes Floors (100m/400m), Markus Rehm (long jump), Irmgard Bensusan (100m/200m), Maria Tietze (100m/200m), David Behre (relay), Lise Petersen (javelin), Dominik Albrecht (sitting volleyball), Stefan Hähnlein (sitting volleyball), Lukas Schiwiy (sitting volleyball), Jürgen Schrapp (sitting volleyball), Mathis Tigler (sitting volleyball)
Paralympics on TV:
Over 60 hours of the games will broadcast live from Tokyo on German TV channels. There are also live stream of the competitions (sportschau.de and zdfsport.de). The main broadcast times are 9.05 to 13.00 CEST, and 14.00 to 15.00 CEST.
Strengthening the Bayer 04 Leverkusen youth teams: Konstantinos Kotsifakis will join the Werkself from Bundesliga 2 club Hertha Berlin for the 2026/27 season, where he will be a permanent member of the Leverkusen U19 coaching set-up. The German-Greek will also take on an operational role in coaching the Bayer 04 Future Team. The 29-year-old was most recently head coach of the U17s at Hertha Berlin.
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Another award for the Bayer 04 head groundsman and staff: After coming top in the 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2024/25 seasons, the BayArena pitch came second in the Bundesliga Pitch of the Year ranking for the 2025/26 season. VfL Wolfsburg secured the top spot this year, with TSG Hoffenheim in third place.
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Opening opponents, derby weekends, the opponents in the season finale: This information and more will be available to Bayer 04 fans on Thursday, 2 July, when the 2026/27 Bundesliga fixture list is published.
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Rüdiger Vollborn has been at the club for 40 years, he holds the record number of Bundesliga appearances for the club (401) and is the only Bayer 04 player to have won both the UEFA Cup (1988) and the DFB Pokal (1993). And the Berliner stayed with the Werkself after ending his impressive playing career as he worked as a goalkeeping coach for the following nine years. Vollborn now works under the Bayer Cross as a fan liaison officer and club archivist. Since February 2021, the personal Black and Red lexicon takes Werkself fans under the heading of 'Rudi recounts...' on a brief trip through the history of Bayer 04 every month…
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