Turn quake continues
Record champion now also raises serious allegations
03.02.2025 – 2:16 p.m.Reading time: 2 min.
There has been a quake in German gymnastics since the end of last year. Now record champion Elisabeth Seitz has also made serious allegations.
In the course of the debate about grievances in German gymnastics, Elisabeth Seitz has now also made serious allegations. In conversation with the SWR, the 31-year-old describes how she suffered from today’s youth coercion at the federal base in Mannheim during her time in Mannheim. Among other things, she had to train with injuries and have to put up with derogatory comments on her weight.
From 2006 to the end of 2014, Seitz trained in Schunk’s training group, which worked as a base manager in Mannheim until 2017. The gymnast tells of an experience, for example, when she had to do gymnastics with bloody hands, later received the diagnosis of “blood poisoning” in the hospital and commented this with the words: “Oh yes, you always have to have something!”
Sporty failures were justified with their supposedly too high weight. To date, Seitz has difficulty weighing. As already reported by other former young gymnasts, she would have had to hand over parts of her victory premiums to Schunk. “Most of the time, it should take place in an envelope or to her private account with the statement that she has so much to do that she now has to afford her own cleaning lady at home,” said Seitz. On this matter, Schunk announced on SWR request that there was “a training return” to the center to “optimize the training of the gymnasts. These payments only benefited the gymnasts, not the trainers working there.”
According to Seitz, the German Turner Association (DTB) knew about her experiences in Mannheim that it had fully reported to the association. Then she moved to Stuttgart. Already last week, former young gymnasts of grievances had reported at the base in Mannheim under Schunk. This had told the SWR that “it was never my intention to burden the gymnasts and that if my behaviors were nevertheless perceived, this is sorry for this.”
Seitz also wrote on Instagram on Monday afternoon: “Thank you for so many news and feedback. It was not an easy step. Because I love gymnastics so much that there is a wonderful sport and there is so much good in my life . ” She added: “But grievances have to be remedied.”
At the request of the SID, the DTB had recently announced that further reports have been received in the past few weeks, “which also affect other bases, including the federal base gymnastics in Mannheim.” The association “all of these reports – regardless of the period they relate and whether they concern individual persons or structural topics – will be incorporated into the various processes that have already been initiated.”
Shortly after Christmas, several, mostly former pointed gymnasts such as Tabea Alt grievances at the base in Stuttgart, had denounced, there was talk of “physical and mental abuse.” The DTB then released two trainers and commissioned a Frankfurt law firm with the investigation, after which an independent expert council is to be dealt with.