Richy Adjei

Richard Adjei, the son of a Ghanaian father and a German mother, was an American football player with the Düsseldorf Panther and a member of the Team Europe at the NFL Global Junior Championship Games in 2002 and 2003. He was also a member of the German national team in 2003. From 2004-06 he played with Rhein Fire Düsseldorf and later the Berlin Thunder. In 2008, he moved back to Düsseldorf Panther. Christoph Langen then discovered Adjei’s talents for bobsleigh events.

Adjei partnered Manuel Machata in the two-man bob becoming Youth World Champion runners-up in 2009 and also winning the European Cup. The next season Adlei partnered Thomas Florschütz in the four-man bob winning the Europeans and the silver medal at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games. He then moved back to partnering Machata, winning the Europeans and the Worlds in 2011 in the four-man bob.

Adjei then changed his sports activities to handball, playing with TSV Kaldenkirchen in a lower league. In 2007, he saved a child from drowning at Tampa, Florida, USA. Adjei died in 2020 at the young age of just 37.