“Shameful for Germany”
Figure skating icon Kati Witt is talking herself into a rage
September 27, 2024, 7:57 a.m
At the Summer Olympics in Paris, the German team performed historically poorly. In an interview with the NOZ, figure skating icon Witt draws a very wide berth from Paris to the Eastern elections of the past few weeks.
Figure skating legend Katarina Witt finds the German athletes’ performance at the Olympic Games in Paris embarrassing. The 58-year-old told the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung” (NOZ): “A tenth place in the medal table is quite shameful for the leading sporting nation we once were. I see it as a reflection of the situation our country is in as a whole . The athletes themselves are least to blame for this; it’s the circumstances that simply don’t allow them the training they need to fight for the top spot in the world.”
But the Olympic record of the German athletes says much more, believes Witt: “We are becoming more and more insignificant – unfortunately politicians still don’t want to admit it. That’s probably why the elections are the way they are, and why the East is rebelling a little more than he has done so far.”
The reason for this is clear to the former top GDR athlete: “I am sure that this is also a result of the transition period. Only in the last three or four years did people start to pay a little more attention to our past. Now it will Politics is driven by people’s reactions and almost forced to make long-overdue decisions because just talking doesn’t help, action has to follow. This also applies to sport.
Numerous explanations after the Olympic Games
Witt is not the only person who searched for explanations after the Olympic Games and came up with an answer. Most of them were more nuanced than the figure skating idol’s.
“In many countries, sport offers the opportunity to climb the social ladder. This has been lost here. I miss this willingness to work one’s ass off,” FC Bayern’s honorary president, Uli Hoeneß, said: “In our country We have to put more emphasis on performance again. We have to work harder again, then we’ll have more success.”
Before the games, Robert Harting wrote in “Sports Illustrated” that “we almost have to be ashamed of our performance.” The DLV’s sports director, Jörg Bügner, also blamed the performance on the German bureaucracy. “We write Excel tables that others train. And that can’t be right,” he said. DOSB President Thomas Weikert identified a “need for action” at all levels. “We need more trainers and better salaries for trainers. I’ve been trying to promote this for many years. It hasn’t quite succeeded yet,” he said.
