As of: October 11, 2025 3:21 p.m
One month after the Lower Saxony Athletics Association (NLV) filed a criminal complaint due to serious allegations of abuse against a former state coach, joint research by the NDR and the BESTZEIT podcast incriminates another former coach at the Hanover location. An athlete tells her story – a prime example of the plight of those affected and the dilemma of associations.
The gray clouds hang low over Hamburg’s Jahnkampfbahn as Tabea Themann mentally returns to the place of one of her darkest memories: a hotel room in southern Germany in midsummer. According to her own statements, the middle and long-distance runner experienced border crossings by her coach at the time a few years ago. He did not respond to an NDR inquiry about the allegations.
“I was totally helpless and didn’t even know what had just happened,” says Themann in an interview with NDR. The voice falters again and again. She repeatedly interrupts her descriptions, sobbing.
With her story, she wants to encourage others who have experienced something similar: “Only if we talk and society and associations learn that such stories are not isolated cases, that it happens every day somewhere in Germany, can something really change,” says the 33-year-old and holds the associations accountable: “They have to look consistently and act.”
“I just lay there stock still”
When the alleged border crossing occurred in the hotel room, Themann was an athlete at the state base in Hanover and was traveling with her then coach and her training group in Bavaria as part of a national competition. The trainer had previously attracted attention through comments about her intimate life and invasive formulations. Other people from the training group also describe the trainer’s sometimes sexist comments as well as invasive comments about the weight, appearance and eating habits of female athletes.
Tabea Themann speaks in an NDR interview about the incidents with her ex-coach.
At the time of the competition in southern Germany, Themann was not in good shape due to a family situation. The day before her race, she revealed her mental distress to her coach. “He then suggested that I could come with him to his hotel room because I would still look completely teary,” says Themann: “He didn’t even turn on the light there.”
In the room he offered her to sit on the bed. “I didn’t think anything of it. Then he lay down and pulled me along,” remembers the then 20-year-old. There he touched her unintentionally and stroked her arm and stomach. “During this he said that he didn’t understand why I didn’t have a boyfriend, I was such a great girl,” Themann continues her description of the incident.
“I still remember lying there stock still with my hotel room key in my hand and not knowing what was happening. I was totally disturbed.”
Tabea Themann
Themann was able to escape the situation: At some point she simply got up and left the room. “I was totally helpless, I didn’t know what had just happened,” she says: “I was totally disturbed.” The trainer took advantage of her unstable situation. Themann does not file a complaint. The case is not being investigated under criminal law.
Escape to Hamburg
The months that followed were difficult for Themann. She confides in people from her training group, seeks help from a psychologist at the Olympic base and finally speaks to another coach about the incident and asks to be allowed to switch to the youth coach at the time – without success. When asked by NDR, the trainer rejected the fact that Themann had informed him about his colleague’s abusive behavior.
“I realized I couldn’t be in a room with this person. I couldn’t look at this person. I felt disgusted.”
Tabea Themann
“For me there was no alternative in Hanover,” says Themann. Further collaboration with her trainer at the time was not an option, so she moved to Hamburg a good six months after the incident: “It felt like my life had turned around 180 degrees.”
Seek help from the association
More than a year after the incident, she contacted the LandesSportBund (LSB) of Lower Saxony from the Hanseatic city, which, as an employer, is responsible for supervising trainers. Themann describes her experiences personally to the LSB and summarizes them in writing in a protocol. The LSB confirms this process. After that, Themann didn’t hear anything for several years.
“I never found out whether my coach had received any sanctions, I didn’t know anything,” says the Hamburg resident, who regularly ran into her former coach at athletics events – including at a national competition in her new home. “Suddenly this person is standing next to me,” she remembers on the Jahnkampfbahn tartan track in Hamburg’s city park.
“The fact that he basically came into my living room, where I train every day, made me so incredibly angry.”
Tabea Themann
For Themann, it felt for years as if no one wanted to “take responsibility and act.” It was easier to “sweep it under the table.” Upon request from the LSB, the NDR learned that the resulting impression was incorrect. “I acknowledged the incident with a warning under labor law against the advice of a lawyer,” says LSB CEO Reinhard Rawe in an interview: “But I nevertheless felt compelled to issue this warning. I say that openly, even though it has long since been deleted from the files and can no longer be used.”
Data protection instead of victim protection? A legal dilemma
The athlete never found out about this warning. Rawe justifies this with labor law. “The recommendation was clearly made that these things should not be passed on,” said the CEO: “From today’s perspective, feedback to Ms. Themann should have been given without describing the specific measure to her. I would definitely do that differently today.”
For data protection reasons, not even the Lower Saxony Athletics Association (NLV), which is responsible for the technical supervision of trainers, was informed about the warning. A legal dilemma that affects all of sports in Germany: Suspected cases and suspected border violations are not shared between clubs or associations due to the legal framework. Rumors of abusive behavior had already circulated about the trainer discussed here at his previous location.
At the beginning of September, NLV President Uwe Schünemann wrote to Minister of State for Sports Christiane Schenderlein (CDU), which was available to NDR, and called for the introduction of a trainer database. The background was the allegations against a former national coach according to research by the magazine “ZDF Frontal”. Kerstin Claus, the Independent Federal Commissioner against Sexual Abuse of Children and Young People, recently supported the call for a register of trainers.
It must be possible for clubs to find out about coaches at previous stations “in order to be able to rule out that the reason for the change was suspected boundary violations,” explained Claus: “A corresponding release from the obligation of confidentiality would be conceivable here.”
Themann wants to encourage others
In addition to the legal dilemma, those affected struggle with their own plight: athletes face a power imbalance compared to their coach. Often, border crossings – as is suspected in Themann’s case – are not relevant under criminal law. Often there are no witnesses. In case of doubt, statement stands against statement.
Themann nevertheless decided to make her case public. “I hope that I can encourage everyone affected,” she says, “that it’s not our fault, but that our trainers have exceeded their limits.”
