One of two medals for Germany: Malaika Mihambo won the world championship title in the long jump in Eugene
Luckily, German athletics had to make do with just two medals at the recent World Championships. Because the historically lousy yield correlates well with conditions, since children and young people in this country can no longer walk straight or stand on one leg, move too little, physical education classes are canceled in rows or are provisionally rescued by non-specialist staff to make ends meet. In this respect, the World Cup balance of the German Athletics Association (DLV) reflected the miserable conditions in schools and general sports in one of the “core sports”. The interest group “Athleten Deutschland” (AD) recently tried to stimulate a debate about the orientation and orientation of the Federal Republic’s sports concept. On Monday, the analysis »Why is it worth it to us? – On the crucial question of state-sponsored top-class sport development in Germany« presented to the press.
A debate about the overriding is timely, but long overdue. The importance of the fight for medals in the overall sports concept of the Federal Republic must be discussed as well as the questions about the scope and price of top-class sport as well as the amount and distribution of funding. In view of huge construction sites and years of sins in leisure, school and hobby sports, the reputation of a “sports nation” that is so popular in this country could degenerate into a paradox and farce.
Thomas Weikert, President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), suggested a “Pact for Sport” on Tuesday at the most recent conference of the sports ministers of the federal states in Munich. “We have to ask ourselves what kind of competitive sport we want. We have to ask ourselves how we can support our athletes and coaches even better. We have to ask ourselves how we can increase the importance of exercise and sport in the entire life cycle of the people in our country, in competitive and popular sport,” he continued.
»We athletes know that expectations are attached to our support. We now want to redefine these in a broad dialogue together with politics, science, practice and the population. Measuring the value of top sporting performances only by winning medals, as is currently the case, does not go far enough,” criticized AD President Karla Borger in a statement on Monday. The hunt for medals alone should no longer be regarded as a funding standard, but criteria such as “relevance to mass sport” should also be taken into account. Isn’t it “false glamor”, Borger asked, when you’re showing off internationally on bobsleigh and toboggan runs and when you can count the number of people on and in the sleds on your fingers at home? When it comes to funding, it must also be taken into account how many members certain professional associations have and how popular a discipline is “among sports people”.
Borger is convinced that a differentiated funding system is needed, »which takes greater account of the social benefit, anchors top-class sport more deeply in society and thus strengthens it in the long term. Maximilian Klein, co-author of the most recent AD position paper, spoke of a “crisis of legitimacy of top-class sport” at the presentation on Monday.
But 27 million members organized in sports clubs, who have been de facto overlooked by politicians since the outbreak of the corona pandemic, are evidence that sport as a whole is in a serious crisis of legitimacy. Its social importance is decreasing. Not to mention the disaster in school sports and in the extracurricular working groups, including the increasing immobility of the next generation, the true extent of which the education ministries of the federal states have not disclosed for years.
According to estimates by the DOSB, the costs for renovation and maintenance at the sports facilities have piled up to more than 30 billion euros. According to the latest scientific surveys, about one in seven of the approximately 90,000 associations nationwide is in existential danger because there is already a lack of volunteers or a lack of staff will soon threaten the ability of the board members to work. The misery in the swimming pools forms a very special and particularly dark chapter.
To date, the need for top-class sport and its public funding has usually been justified by the fact that it should inspire an audience of millions from all parts of the population and thus act as a role model for the youngest. The AD want to question the cemented and in practice no longer consistent equation “more money equals more success” in order to give top and competitive sport more acceptance in the future. After all, it’s about much more than “the production of sporting success”.
The result of the debate should lead to a new concept, which the Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, who is responsible for competitive sports, is planning for the end of 2022. It is to be hoped that the SPD politician knows about the many connections and bridges to the base with its millions of athletes. The must-do sports program awaits here – the hunt for titles and badges is the freestyle.
