German bobsled pilot Lisa Buckwitz won Olympic silver with brakewoman Neele Schuten in Cortina on February 21, 2026, finishing 0.53 seconds behind their German teammates Laura Nolte and Deborah Levi. It was Buckwitz’s first Olympic medal as a pilot, adding a new chapter to a career that had already made headlines far beyond winter sports.
What happened
Buckwitz, 31, has become one of the most talked-about athletes in German bobsleigh not just because of her results, but because of how openly she has spoken about money. In late 2024, she launched an OnlyFans page after saying that elite sport had become too expensive to manage on performance alone.
That decision immediately drew attention because of the platform’s reputation. But Buckwitz made her position clear from the start: there would be no porn, no explicit erotic content, and no nudity. Instead of selling “nudes,” she used the page to post training content, behind-the-scenes updates, race-day moments, gym tips, and parts of her daily routine.
Why it matters
Buckwitz’s story says a lot about the financial reality behind elite sport. Even high-level athletes with world-class results are often forced to think like freelancers, sponsors, and media personalities at the same time. In earlier coverage of her Olympic build-up, she said the pressure of funding her career and constantly promoting herself made it harder to focus only on performance. That tension was also reflected in TV2’s reporting on her road to the Olympics.
Now she has something undeniable to show for it: an Olympic silver medal.
Key details
Buckwitz had already attracted mainstream media attention before Beijing 2022, when she appeared in Playboy Germany’s Olympic photo series with Austrian skeleton athlete Janine Flock. She said at the time that the shoot was about confidence and body image, not shock value.
Her OnlyFans move followed the same logic. Buckwitz described it less as a scandalous career turn and more as a practical source of support for an expensive sport that does not always pay athletes back for the level they perform at. That is part of why her silver in Cortina lands differently: it is not just a viral headline anymore, but a major Olympic result.
What’s next
Buckwitz’s podium finish is likely to keep the conversation going around how athletes finance elite careers, especially in sports where sponsorship money is limited and visibility comes unevenly. In her case, OnlyFans was never presented as a place for nudes, but as a tool that helped keep her career moving. After Cortina, that decision looks less like a controversy and more like a strategy that helped her stay in the game long enough to win.
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