27 Jul 2025

The amateur archer whose volunteer role at historic venue is a return to roots

ESSEN – Local man Bernd Lambertz knows his way around the hugely impressive Zeche Zollverein site better than most, but not just because he has been a volunteer for the archery competition at the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games.

As a teenager, Lambertz began his working career at the historic venue, almost 45 years ago when it was still a huge industrial coal mining complex.

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“I started my education here on 1 August 1980 as a locksmith, repairing and building machinery,” Lambertz told the FISU Games News Service (FGNS). “Our education place was here, like 500 metres from where we are standing now.”

COVERED IN COAL

After finishing his initial training, he then spent an intensive three-month period working in Zeche Zollverein’s mine shafts.

“It was a great adventure place,” Lambertz remembered with a smile. “It’s like a small tunnel with many directions, very warm, nearly 32-36ºC, and you were always, from head to toe, covered in coal.”

“My colleagues from the tunnels are very special to me. You must trust each other. It’s for your life and theirs. It was really dangerous down there.”

Now recognised for outstanding architecture and industrial significance, Zeche Zollverein became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001, and now occasionally hosts archery competitions with its striking backdrop of the twin winding towers.

“I’m very proud of this place,” Lambertz said. “This is my old education place, old workplace – and now it’s my sports place.”

NEW TARGET

In a strange coincidence, a holiday in Italy decades later would eventually reconnect Lambertz with Zollverein in a way he could never have imagined.

“In 2018, I tried archery for the first time during a holiday,” he recalled. “Once I tried it, I thought, ‘wow’, it’s very good.

“Your mind has to be clear. You need good posture. If you have a lot of stress, go to the field and shoot some arrows – your mind will be cleared.”

The sport quickly became more than a hobby. It became a passion, and then a meaningful purpose.

“I’m an archer for five years now. And the first time I volunteered was last year at the European (2024 archery) championships (at Zeche Zollverein), and now this year too.

“My best memory is my job, the one I did here (Zeche Zollverein) and this experience at the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU Games, helping out at archery, it’s (also) great.”

FULL CIRCLE

As archers at the FISU Games sent arrows flying beneath the towering steel structure once used to lift coal, Lambertz found joy, not only in the sport, but in reconnecting with his roots and closest friends.

“We still meet, my old friends from the mines,” Lambertz said. “In two weeks, eight or nine of us will come here again, do a tour of the mines, go to a restaurant, drink something, and talk about old times. We do it once or twice a year.”

Much like the student-athletes of the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU Games building new friendships in the shadows of Zollverein, Lambertz’s life shows how history, community and sport can intersect in powerful and personal ways.

Once a place that powered the region, Zeche Zollverein now energises in a different way for competitors and volunteers alike.

FGNS vs/pg/mb