Former top Stuttgart gymnast Tabea Alt accuses coaches and associations of “specifically putting her health at risk.” Other athletes such as Carina Kröll, Michelle Timm, Janine Berger and Kim Bui also speak out.
For Tabea Alt it was “systematic physical and mental abuse” at the federal base in Stuttgart. This is what it says in an Instagram post that the 24-year-old published on Saturday (December 28, 2024).. Accordingly, those responsible ignored medical instructions and allowed old people to do gymnastics with injuries, sometimes even broken bones.
Several athletes with similar problems
Alt doesn’t see herself as an isolated case: “Eating disorders, punishment training, painkillers, threats and humiliation were the order of the day,” she writes. In addition to Alt, Carina Kröll also made serious allegations against the DTB on her Instagram account. The 23-year-old, who competed for Germany until 2022 and then moved to the Austrian association, particularly denounced the pressure to perform in the gymnastics system. This leaves little time to appreciate successes because new goals would be defined immediately.
Kröll, who was born in Filderstadt, also commented on the topic of nutrition. At the age of 17, she was pressured to lose five to six kilograms of weight within a few weeks in order to supposedly remain competitive: “I was ‘supposedly’ at my limit. For context: I was 1.64 meters tall and weighed 54 kilograms – a completely healthy weight. Nevertheless, I was classified as too heavy.
Another gymnast, Michelle Timm, commented on the undesirable developments at the Stuttgart base on Sunday (December 29, 2024). “These years of abuse are destroying people. This emotional dependency is hard to describe to outsiders and I can’t even express what ‘children like me’ have been through,” the 27-year-old wrote on Instagram.
Michelle Timm: “I trained with visible physical damage”
“If you no longer perform or are no longer successful, the responsibility is quickly placed on you to either come back or be gone,” says Timm. “My career also ended prematurely in this way. Just a few weeks after my last international medals for Germany, due to stress fractures in my tibia and fibula, I realized that I would be out for an indefinite period of time and would have to undergo several operations. The real turning point came However, when I found out that I had been training for months with visible physical damage due to incorrect medical decisions, it was only today that I can say that this mistake meant the end of my career.”
Timm also denounced the “catastrophic circumstances at the Kunstturn-Forum Stuttgart”. “There are massive problems with the female coaching team,” she wrote. “We talk about ‘safe sport’ and sign meaningless papers, yet everyone ignores how young Stuttgart girls are treated badly in order to elicit top sporting achievements from them.” Timm is therefore calling for personnel consequences.
Janine Berger also spoke up on Sunday (December 29th). The fourth-place finisher at the London 2012 Olympics, who competes for SSV Ulm 1846, also wrote on Instagram: “It’s time for changes to finally happen in the German gymnastics system. It’s time for the DTB to take responsibility and grievances not continue to be ignored.”
Janine Berger: “I was told that food was bad”
She also “battled against an eating disorder for over ten years” and almost lost this battle. “The sad thing is, those in charge knew exactly what was going on. It was even encouraged. I could never be thin enough and it was systematically drilled into me that food was bad. I was weighed morning, afternoon and evening and if I only gained 200 grams “If I had a lot on the scale, I was threatened with being banned from competitions and/or training camps.”
The peak of this undesirable development was reached after the 2012 Olympics. “I lost my medal due to a judge’s mistake. I was emotionally devastated and felt like a failure for years. None of those responsible in the association supported me, on the contrary,” Berger wrote. “It was even followed up. I was told that my weight was to blame. And at the time I was eight percent body fat.”
“I ate and threw up everything again”
Looking back, it was more about her weight than her performance, said Berger, who accused those responsible of “abusing power and systematically pushing her into an eating disorder.” In order to adhere to the weight requirements, she resorted to measures that were harmful to her health: “I ate and threw up everything.” The system is particularly unhealthy for young gymnasts: “If I’m not allowed to eat anything and train for six hours a day, then no body can handle it in the long term.”
At some point, Berger fell into “severe depression”: “I no longer had any meaning in life and it took a long time until I was able to find myself and my worth again.” She is still struggling with the consequences to this day.
More gymnasts speak out
World-class gymnasts Kim Bui and Emelie Petz had previously reported eating disorders during their careers. Bui was diagnosed with bulimia at the age of 15 after her trainer asked her about her body weight. It was only after seven years of therapy that she was able to develop a healthy relationship with food and her body again.
On Sunday (December 29th, 2024) Bui commented on Instagram and expressed her support for the gymnasts. She was “deeply moved and full of respect for the courage of my former companions.” She knows from her own experience how difficult it is to “find your own voice and speak out against a system that seemed untouchable for so long.” “It’s time for us to raise our voices,” she began her statement.
Former gymnast Emelie Petz also wrote on Instagram a few days before Christmas: “I’ve been battling an eating disorder for years.” The 21-year-old ended her career in 2023 after a lengthy Achilles tendon injury, which also cost her participation in the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. She loves the sport, but many people don’t see what the sport leaves behind, wrote Petz. The 17-year-old gymnast Meolie Jauch also announced the end of her career in December, “not because my body can’t take it anymore – but because mentally it’s no longer possible.”
DTB and STB have “concrete information”.
It is currently unknown whether this accumulation of mental and physical problems and resignations is directly related to the allegations made by Tabea Alt. At the request of SWR Sport, the DTB commented on the allegations on Saturday. “The German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) as well as the Swabian Gymnastics Federation (STB) take the public debate and allegations about the mental health of competitive gymnasts very seriously. In this context, the DTB and STB have concrete information about possible misconduct on their part responsible trainer at the federal base in Stuttgart.”
What happened should now be processed
The statement continued: “Both associations will jointly initiate an investigation into what happened. External support will also be called in for this investigation. The subject of the investigation will be possible misconduct by trainers and coaches but also errors in the competitive sports system at federal bases as well as the handling of possible tips within the association structures of the STB and DTB.”
The allegations made by Tabea Alt should not be new to the associations. According to her own information, the 24-year-old wrote a “detailed letter” to her trainer, the then national coach Ulla Koch, the DTB President Alfons Hölzl and the team doctor in 2021. “In it I clearly identified and made known the grievances here in Stuttgart and in German women’s gymnastics in general using my example.” She also suggested solutions and wanted to work on them herself.
During her active time, Alt did gymnastics for MTV Ludwigsburg (individuals) and MTV Stuttgart (team). In April 2021, she retired from competitive sports at the age of 21 after various injuries.