01
Mindset, Pressure & Mental Health
Real athlete insights on expectations, pressure to perform, setbacks, injuries and doubt. What happens behind the performance, and what does it take to compete at the highest level for years?
01 / 14 · Cover
Edition 01Magazine
Creating connections that inspire.
Scroll
Tonight
ON STAGE.
Five speakers, one host. Tap a face to read more about the person.
Benedikt Höwedes
World Cup winner 2014 · Founder of Matchpoint · Co-commentator on Prime Video
Léa Krüger
Former professional fencer · Founder of „Mehr als Muskeln“ · Vice President of Athleten Deutschland e.V.
Mathilda Paatz
F1 Academy · Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy
Florian Winter
CEO Ringside Zone · Entrepreneur
Sven Froberg
Media entrepreneur · Producer
Julian-Luca Schäfer
Sports journalist · Commentator · Host
With us
THE BRANDS OF THE EVENING.
NEV®
Orthomol
AV8
MATRIX
WINNAS
Creapure®
NEV®
NEV®
Music · Creator
InèsOuqs
DJ, artist and creator
Inès Ouqs is a DJ, artist and creator. Music and movement have been part of her path for a long time. Before she stood behind the decks herself, she worked as a professional dancer for many years. Rhythm was part of her journey long before it turned into music.
Today she releases her own songs and plays as DJ SINÈ. Her sets blend hip-hop, R&B and Afrobeats into a sound shaped by her own musical and cultural identity.
2M+
people follow her on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube
Alongside this, Inès has built a large international audience. Across platforms, more than two million people now follow her on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Her content ranges from music and DJ sets to dance, fashion and lifestyle, reaching a community far beyond the music scene.
Her path shows how fluid the lines between artist, creator and entertainment have become, and how music, personal identity and a strong community can grow together.
Die Idee
SPORT BRINGS PEOPLE TOGETHER.
KONNECTIKA BRINGS THEIR WORLDS TOGETHER.
Anyone who has spent years in elite sport knows a lot of people and still tends to move in a surprisingly small world. Training, competitions, travel and recovery shape the days. The network grows, yet it often stays closely tied to one's own discipline.
And yet a sporting career holds a value that reaches far beyond results. Athletes gather experience, build reach, develop character and learn to perform under conditions that few people ever know.
Across disciplines and career stages, many of the same questions keep coming up.
How do I deal with pressure?
What do I want to build alongside my career?
How do I handle money that I may only earn for a limited time?
What options do I have as an entrepreneur or investor?
How do I keep developing my personality and my own brand?
And at some point, there is the question of what life after active sport might look like.
1 / 6
At the same time, companies, brands, technologies and ideas are emerging around sport and opening up new possibilities. Entrepreneurs, founders and brands, for their part, are looking to connect with athletes. Personal access, however, usually only comes about once a sponsorship, a marketing deal or a concrete business matter is already on the table.
KONNECTIKA grew out of this observation.
The format brings athletes from different sports together with people from business, brands, start-ups, entrepreneurship, investment and the creator world. People whose paths might never cross in everyday life meet, exchange experiences, share ideas and discover new perspectives.
Different sports, generations, career stages and industries come together in one room.
A young athlete sits next to a world champion.
A founder strikes up a conversation with an investor.
A brand meets an athlete from a world it has barely touched before.
On 24 September in Cologne, this space comes to life for the first time.
Our vision is to keep bringing these worlds together through KONNECTIKA and to develop a format that can grow with its people, perspectives and themes.
Not every encounter has to lead somewhere. What matters first is that it happens at all.
No career is built alone.
Nelvie Tiafack
FAR BEYOND THE RING
Nelvie Tiafack started boxing at 15. Years later, he stood on one of the biggest stages in sport.
In 2022 he became European champion. At the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris he won bronze in the super heavyweight division and wrote German boxing history. He was the first German boxer to win an Olympic medal in that weight class.
Today he is a professional boxer with Most Valuable Promotions, the promotion founded by Jake Paul and Nakisa Bidarian.
01Paris 2024 · Bronze
02Super heavyweight
03European champion 2022
04German boxing history
05Cologne
06NEVER ENDING VICTORY
07NEVNATION
08Far beyond the ring
Nelvie Tiafack's career could easily be told through sporting success alone. It becomes just as interesting where his life opens up beyond the ring.
With NEVER ENDING VICTORY he has founded his own clothing brand. With NEVNATION he brings people together through a run club. Add to that his commitment to the boxing gym in Bergheim, entrepreneurship, investments and a network that now reaches far beyond boxing.
Tiafack belongs to a generation of athletes for whom an active sporting career no longer has to run along a single track. Sport remains the centre. New spaces open up around it.
He understood early on what relationships can be worth. People from sport, media and business have widened his view of the possibilities a career can open up. With KONNECTIKA he wants to pass that experience on, show other athletes sooner what their career already makes possible today, and connect them with worlds they rarely encounter in their daily training routine.
Athletes bring many qualities that are just as valuable in business. We know discipline, pressure and defeat, we work on ourselves every day and we know that lasting success is never built alone.“
That is why KONNECTIKA also carries part of his own story within it.
RHYSE BEYOND LIMITS.
The Emotional Engine of Sport, Lifestyle & Entertainment.
RHYSE Global is shaped by first-hand experience of elite sport and the conviction that sport goes far beyond what happens in competition. It shapes people, creates stories and communities, and connects worlds that seem to have little in common at first glance.
As an agency for sport, lifestyle and entertainment marketing, RHYSE works where these worlds intersect. Athletes now shape fashion and culture, creators are changing how sport is communicated, and brands are becoming part of communities. At these intersections RHYSE develops brand activations and campaigns, supports sports sponsorships and brand partnerships, and works with athletes and creators. With the aim of creating personalities, experiences and ideas that move, connect and inspire people.
WHERE SPORT BECOMES A STAGE.
Sport, lifestyle and entertainment rarely sit as close together as they do on a Formula 1 weekend. These are exactly the intersections RHYSE looks for. Impressions from the paddock in Budapest.
CREATE YOUR OWN REFERENCE.
One idea plays a special role here. Anyone who wants to build something cannot always wait for others to open doors. You have to take the first step yourself and create your own reference.
Anyone who is not yet heard or seen has to start making themselves visible and relevant. Not loud, but clear. Not arbitrary, but with conviction.
What do you stand for? What sets you apart? What should people associate with you? A strong brand does not begin once others confirm it. It begins where you develop a recognisable identity yourself and give it meaning through what you do.
The German Small Side Cup stands for exactly that.
In February 2026, RHYSE turned an idea of its own into a football format at the DFB campus in Frankfurt within a few weeks. Professional footballers, creators and personalities from the small-sided football scene came together. With the second edition in December, the format keeps evolving and ties sporting competition even more closely to social impact.
Football.Stories.Impact.
With KONNECTIKA, the next idea of our own grows out of this attitude. This time the focus is not a pitch, but the space between people. Athletes from different sports meet entrepreneurs, founders, brands, investors, creators and media.
In their own ways, both formats show what RHYSE wants to build: connecting sport, brands and people into experiences that last.
And the view reaches further than the next project. Founder Cedrik Mvondo wants his own path to inspire people to think bigger, open up new access for athletes, anchor brands credibly in sport and communities, and give ideas the room to grow into something of their own.
Because where you come from, and the limits already in place, do not decide what is possible.
Panel Talk
THE TOPICS THAT MOVE SPORT TODAY.
Athletic performance remains the starting point. Around it, however, the world of athletes has changed. Public life, entrepreneurship, mental health, investments, communities and new media are now part of a career that has long taken place on more levels than the pitch, the track or the ring.
Six topics therefore set the frame for the KONNECTIKA Panel Talk.
02
Personal Brand & the Creator World
How athletes can build their personality, story and reach over the long term. How do you build a personal brand, what role do social media and your own communities play, and how can athletes develop cultural relevance beyond their sport and become media brands themselves?
03
Sports Business, Entrepreneurship & Investments
Which skills from elite sport carry over into entrepreneurship, and how can athletes make the most of the economic opportunities open to them? More and more athletes are becoming entrepreneurs themselves, and athletes are becoming investors in start-ups. How are start-ups, technologies, media and new formats changing sport? What opportunities arise from this, and how does it change the athlete's role in the sports business?
04
Women's Sport
Visibility, economic growth and cultural relevance. Where does women's sport stand today, what is happening right now, and what potential remains untapped?
05
Network & the Right Connections
What role do relationships inside and outside sport play in personal development? How does genuine access to business, brands, investors or media come about, and which encounters can change the course of a career?
06
The Modern Athlete & a Career Beyond Sport
The role of athletes is changing. What can athletes build during their active career without losing focus on their performance? And how can they develop perspectives early on that will carry them through and beyond their active career?
Perspectives
FIVE PEOPLE. FIVE VIEWS ON SPORT.
The value of a conversation often lies in the perspective of the person leading it. At KONNECTIKA, experience from a World Cup, motorsport, elite sport, athlete representation, media and entrepreneurship comes together.
01 / 05
BenediktHöwedes
World Cup winner 2014 · Founder of Matchpoint · Co-commentator on Prime Video
Benedikt Höwedes knows football from its biggest stage. In the 2014 World Cup triumph he played every minute of all seven matches. For many years he captained FC Schalke 04 and experienced what performance, responsibility and leadership mean at the highest level.
Today his attention also turns to what can grow out of those experiences. With Matchpoint he has co-founded a platform that brings athletes, companies and experts together. Höwedes brings the perspective of a world champion who has himself lived through the transition from active professional sport into a new chapter. As a co-commentator on Prime Video, he now also reads the game from a media perspective.
02 / 05
LéaKrüger
Former professional fencer · Founder of „Mehr als Muskeln“ · Vice President of Athleten Deutschland e.V.
Seventeen years in elite sport have shaped Léa Krüger's view of it. The former sabre fencer was part of the German national squad and knows not only competition and success, but also injuries, pressure to perform and the mental side of a career.
Today she gives athletes a voice and works on mental health, athletes' rights and co-determination. As Vice President of Athleten Deutschland, a member of the DOSB Athletes' Commission and deputy chair of the NADA supervisory board, she brings her experience to the places where the conditions and the future of elite sport are shaped.
03 / 05
MathildaPaatz
F1 Academy · Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy
Mathilda Paatz races in the F1 Academy and is part of the Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy. She stands for a generation that carries responsibility early in motorsport: on track, towards partners and in public.
Her perspective links two topics of the evening: women's sport, which is becoming more visible and growing commercially, and the question of how young female athletes build a career that plays out on more levels than the track from day one.
04 / 05
FlorianWinter
CEO Ringside Zone · Entrepreneur
Thinking bigger about German professional boxing again is the goal Florian Winter has set himself with Ringside Zone. His approach combines sporting quality with entertainment, storytelling, atmosphere and the development of new personalities.
Winter belongs to a generation of promoters who want to reposition boxing. That means modern events, media visibility, strong partnerships and targeted support for young talent. His perspective shows what can emerge when sport and entrepreneurship meet and someone is prepared to build their own vision for a sport.
05 / 05
SvenFroberg
Media entrepreneur · Producer
Sven Froberg has witnessed some of the biggest changes in the German sports business up close. His career took him from sports television at Sat.1 and Premiere, through leadership roles at DSF and the Sport-Informations-Dienst, to VfL Wolfsburg.
More than 25 years in sport, media and communication give him a distinctive view of an industry that keeps reinventing itself. From classic sports television to today's creator economy, Froberg has seen how media, attention, marketing and the role of athletes have changed. Today he works as a media entrepreneur and producer.
Host
Julian-LucaSchäfer
Sports journalist · Commentator · Host
Julian-Luca Schäfer hosts the panel talk. As a sports journalist and commentator, he is used to reading events live, asking the right question at the right moment and telling stories in a way that lands with the audience.
The Vision
THE JOURNEY CONTINUES.
For us, 24 September is the starting point.
With the first edition of KONNECTIKA we want to show the value of a space where sport, personal experience, new perspectives and genuine relationships come together. Over time, this should grow into a format that takes place regularly and develops with its people and themes.
KONNECTIKA should keep bringing new perspectives into sport. Other disciplines, other personalities, new generations and the topics that occupy athletes today and shape their future.
Our goal is to take KONNECTIKA beyond Cologne and to create new access with every edition. A format that accompanies athletes through different stages of their career, makes knowledge and experience accessible, and lets relationships form that can last well beyond a single evening.
KONNECTIKA should also give young athletes the chance to widen their view beyond their own sporting world early on. Many questions about personal development, entrepreneurship, finances, marketing or life after active sport arise long before a career ends. Access to new perspectives, experiences and relationships is therefore valuable during an active career, not just after it.
At the same time, KONNECTIKA should be relevant to the people who experience and shape sport from other perspectives.
Founders and start-upsFounders and start-ups gain access to real experience from sport and can bring their ideas into a new environment.
BrandsBrands get to know athletes and their world from a personal closeness that can lead to long-term relationships and shared ideas.
EntrepreneursEntrepreneurs encounter new business models, personalities and developments around sport, lifestyle and entertainment.
Creators and personalities from media, entertainment and cultureCreators and personalities from media, entertainment and culture bring their own perspectives, communities and experience. They shape how people discover stories, how new topics gain attention and how culture is made. For KONNECTIKA, their perspective widens the space beyond classic sport and creates connections to worlds that are increasingly relevant to athletes and brands.
Bringing all these people together in one place is something special.
Because normally there is hardly any occasion for it.
And that is exactly where we see the long-term idea of KONNECTIKA.
We are building a format that brings these worlds together again and again. With athletes from different sports, people at different stages of their career, and personalities from the worlds of business, brands, media and creators.
KONNECTIKA should be more than a date that appears in the calendar once and then disappears.
Rather a format that people return to, that new people join, and from which every edition brings new stories, relationships, ideas and opportunities.
What happens on 24 Sept in Cologne should resonate far beyond that evening.
Creating connections that inspire.
By athletes. For athletes.
Creating connections that inspire.
Nelvie Tiafack × RHYSE Global
KONNECTIKA Magazin · Edition 01 · 24 September 2026 · Cologne