Frankfurt/Main (dpa) – The German Olympic Sports Confederation is exercising restraint when assessing the expiry of Russia’s Olympic ban at the end of the year and the country’s return to world sport.
“Russia is a sports nation with tradition. It is therefore fundamentally correct that these athletes are also part of the world community,” said Thomas Weikert, President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation, the German Press Agency.
The decision to allow around 200 clean Russian athletes to take part in the Beijing Winter Games is to be welcomed. “I think the symbolism of having excluded the country is correct. But you can certainly argue about a lot,” said Weikert.
Russia was initially banned from major sporting events for four years by the World Anti-Doping Agency for manipulating doping data in the Moscow laboratory. The International Court of Arbitration for Sports halved the penalty for Russia, which had achieved decades of success based on a comprehensive doping system. Therefore, the DOSB competitive sports director Dirk Schimmelpfennig warns against an unconditional return to world sport next year: “You can’t say okay without being tested. You have to look at and evaluate that very closely in the different sports.”
DOSB boss satisfied with the start phase
DOSB President Weikert is satisfied with the start of the new presidency. “We’ve already gotten a lot off the ground in such a short amount of time,” said the 60-year-old lawyer, who was elected head of the DOSB on December 4th. Weikert had succeeded Alfons Hörmann, who was at the center of a leadership crisis in the DOSB. In an anonymous letter, employees alleged that there was a “culture of fear” at the headquarters of the umbrella organization.
“The management crisis has not resulted in a lack of projects or in employees having deficits. On the contrary,” said Weikert. “The employees are very motivated and are happy that there is a new executive committee.”
He does not know whether there was fear among the employees, “but there was uncertainty. There was a bad feeling among the staff in places”. After two service meetings and talks with the works council, the DOSB is again “on the right track to eliminating fears, negative feelings and sensitivities”.
In addition, many problems have been tackled. Torsten Burmester was hired to replace CEO Veronika Rücker, who resigned in the wake of the crisis. The tender for the sports development division has also been launched. In addition, a commission has been appointed with the former judge at the Federal Court of Justice, Clemens Basdorf, and the sports official Christa Thiel. The committee is tasked with examining the processes in the DOSB from May 2021 to December 2021.
The focus would be on the events surrounding the anonymous letter, in the course of which former board member Karin Fehres was put under legal pressure by Hörmann and Rückert. The criticized handling of the former presidency with ex-athlete representative Jonathan Koch will also be examined.
“To do this, the commission should look at all the correspondence and assess whether mistakes have been made and whether any claims can be derived from them – against whomever,” Weikert explained. The time window for this work is until September: “Let’s see whether the commission can manage in time.”