Lara Hinsberger, another top German gymnast, complains about gross grievances at the federal base in Stuttgart. “In Stuttgart I was treated like an object. I was used until I was so physically and mentally broken that I lost all value to the trainers (and at some point also to myself),” the 20-year-old from Saarland wrote in a letter on New Year’s Eve published Instagram post. “I have been receiving psychotherapeutic treatment since my time in Stuttgart.” At the time, she also trained while injured, says Hinsberger: “I continued to train until at some point I suffered a stress fracture in my shin with an additional torn meniscus in my left leg. When my mother spoke to the doctor (who was in Stuttgart) on the phone, she was told that I wasn’t allowed to train. Medical advice was ignored. I only trained with parallel bars for almost five hours a day. Concerns from outside trainers were ignored. Instead, she continued to lose weight. At the German championships in 2019, she weighed 37 kilograms and was 1.60 meters tall. “Everyone in German gymnastics had really talked about it, but unfortunately no one stepped in to protect me,” writes Hinsberger. Shortly afterwards, the then 14-year-old was diagnosed with depression, among other things.
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Last weekend, led by the former selection gymnasts Tabea Alt and Michelle Timm, several athletes made grievances public at the Stuttgart Artistic Gymnastics Forum. “Systematic physical and mental abuse” and catastrophic circumstances were denounced. The German record champion Elisabeth Seitz was the first active top gymnast to call for an investigation into the allegations of abuse. For the future, “abuses must be remedied and the people who cause them must be held responsible,” the Stuttgart native wrote on Instagram.
Hinsberger also believes that fundamental reforms are needed in German gymnastics. “My experiences were in Stuttgart, but what is important is that the whole system is changing,” she writes. She certainly knows that there are “enormous grievances” at other locations that are being ignored: “That is simply not acceptable.”
The DTB comments in a statement
The German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) has asserted that it had already responded three years ago to grievances that the former gymnast Tabea Alt had drawn attention to in a letter in 2021. This was frightening and at the same time helpful and was not without consequences, it said in a further statement on the allegations of abuse made by several athletes at the federal base in Stuttgart.
:“Punishment training and humiliation”
The former top gymnast Tabea Alt makes serious allegations against the German Gymnastics Association. The association confirms concrete evidence of misconduct.
The DTB had already announced an investigation before Hinsberger’s statement. In addition, immediate measures were initiated. The DTB and the Swabian Gymnastics Federation (STB) have “concrete information about possible misconduct on the part of responsible trainers at the federal base in Stuttgart,” the association announced. In a further statement on New Year’s Eve, the DTB announced a self-critical review of the previous measures.
“The review process, in which the gymnasts are intensively involved, must show whether we were unable to adequately communicate the measures taken, whether the gymnasts perceived the measures differently or whether they were wrong or insufficient,” the association statement said. Timm’s information would have had preliminary personnel consequences before Christmas. Medical control and authority to give instructions were also transferred from the trainers to a higher-level person. It is important to treat and listen to all sides fairly during the process. “Here too, we must recognize the sometimes completely different perceptions and use these as an opportunity for a self-critical review,” admitted the DTB.
Former top gymnast Kim Bui, a member of the IOC Athletes Commission since August 2024, spoke in the magazine star about a system that has manipulated and humiliated female athletes for years. “The conditions at the federal base in Stuttgart must have consequences under labor law. “It looks like young people were destroyed there, and that shouldn’t go without personnel consequences,” said Bui.
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