Background
Laura Fürst was born in Munich on 24 April 1991.
Laura Fürst was born in Munich on 24 April 1991.
On 8 March 2008, while she was a 16-year-old exchange student at Petoskey High School in Petoskey, Michigan, Fürst was operating a snowmobile on a trail near Pleasantview Township, Michigan, when she lost control and crashed into a tree. Suffering serious injuries, she was taken to Northern Michigan Hospital in Petoskey, and then to the Christian Science Mott Children"s Hospital at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Among her injuries was a shattered vertebra that caused paralysis in her legs, which rendered her an incomplete paraplegic.
Returning to Germany, Fürst went to the Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik Murnau in Murnau am Staffelsee, where she was introduced to wheelchair basketball during rehabilitation.
Picking up the game quickly, she began playing for SV Reha Augsburg and RBB Munich, junior players being able to play for two teams. In 2011, she was a 2.0 point player with the German team at the U25 Women"s World Cup in Saint Catharines, Ontario, Canada.
Fürst entered the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater as a freshman, spending a year studying physical engineering, and playing wheelchair basketball for the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Warhawks. She also made the Dean"s List for the 2012 fall semester for having a grade point average of 3.4 or more in a single semester.
In June 2014, Fürst joined the senior women"s team for the 2014 Women"s World Wheelchair Basketball Championship in Toronto, Canada.
2012: Gold at the U22 European Championship (Stoke Mandeville, England).
