Fabian Heimpel

Who is Fabian Heimpel?

Fabian Heimpel is a German international rugby union player, playing for the University of Cape Town RFC and the German national rugby union team.

He made his debut for Germany against Portugal on 27 February 2010.

Heimpel has also played for the Germany's 7's side in the past, like at the 2009 Hannover Sevens.

Heimpel was top scorer of the Rugby-Bundesliga in 2009-10 with 225 points. At the end of the 2010-11 season, Heimpel, together with his friend Florian Wehrspann, moved to South Africa for a year, to join University of Cape Town RFC, a team the former German international Bodo Sieber used to play for, but opted to return to Germany early.

Fabian Heimpel was one of four German rugby players, together with Mustafa Güngör, Raphael Pyrasch and Bastian Himmer, who were promised by the DRV that they could join the Sportkompanie of the Bundeswehr, a special sports unit within the German Army. This was however not the case, with no places available in the unit for male rugby players until 2012. This let to great resentment by the players towards the DRV and its then-chairman Claus-Peter Bach because all four had turned down other options in favour of the promised place in the Sportkompanie. Heimpel subsequently opted out of military service altogether and chose civilian service instead.