Top gymnast makes serious allegations
“I was physically and mentally broken”
01/01/2025 – 4:27 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
The next top German gymnast speaks out about the conditions at a federal base – and becomes clear. She is not the first to make her suffering public.
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 for the trainers (and at some point also for myself),” writes the 20-year-old Saarlander in an Instagram post published on New Year’s Eve. “I have been receiving psychotherapeutic treatment since I was in Stuttgart.”
At the time, Hinsberger describes that she had also trained while injured at times: “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 phoned the doctor (who was in Stuttgart), she was told: that I wasn’t allowed to train. The doctor’s advice was ignored. I only trained with parallel bars for almost 5 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.
Last weekend, led by 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 German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) had already announced an investigation before Hinsberger’s statement. In addition, immediate measures were initiated. The DTB and the Swabian Gymnastics Federation (STB) had “concrete information about possible misconduct on the part of responsible trainers at the federal base in Stuttgart,” the association said. In a further statement on New Year’s Eve, the DTB announced a self-critical review of the previous measures.
The former top gymnast Kim Bui spoke in the magazine “Stern” about a system that had 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 cannot be left without personnel consequences,” said Bui.