In an exclusive interview with SWR Sport, the 31-year-old accuses her former trainer of her former trainer at the Mannheim gymnastics center and abuse of power. She still suffers from it today.
She wrestled with herself for a long time and is now the first active gymnast about the grievances in gymnastics. When Elisabeth “Eli” Seitz sits down for the interview, she seems tense. Talking about her past at the Mannheim gymnasium is obviously difficult for her. It’s about your time in Claudia Schunk’s training group. Today’s national coach for the female gymnastics youngsters worked as a base manager in Mannheim from 2006 to 2017.
Also former Young gymnasts at the Turnzentrum Mannheim recently reported a trivialization of pain and injuries, verbal attacks and punishments. From 2006 to the end of 2014, Eli Seitz trained in Schunk’s training group. During this time, Seitz managed to jump into the top of the world. In 2011 she became Vice-European champion in all-around and managed the Olympic participation in 2012.
At the same time, she also experienced abuse of power and humiliation by the trainer Schunk, as she describes in conversation with SWR Sport.
That’s why Eli Seitz now speaks
Visibly moved she reports on her past experiences at the Turnzentrum Mannheim: “I love this sport, I live for sport,” she emphasizes. “But there is also part of my career some time ago that didn’t go well.” Seitz wants to talk about her history because it is currently the best for gymnastics that is just spoken. “So that we can change it in the future and do better.”
“Stop feeling yourself!”
While she describes concrete examples, Seitz keeps pulling her black sweater over her hands. Completely invalidated, she says, should she gymnastics on the uneven bars and slammed her face on the Holm at the hunting salo. Until her mother picked her up 40 minutes later, Seitz still had to do strength training with the cooling pack on her lips.
On another day, she continued to do with bloody hands until she had become dizzy: “I got sick and a stroke was formed on my arm. Then she sent me to physiotherapy. They immediately took me into the emergency room sent to the hospital. ” With the diagnosis of “blood poisoning” she came back to the hall. One could not recognize blood poisoning immediately, but Seitz remembers Schunk’s reaction: “Her comment was: ‘Oh yes, you always have to have something!'”
In principle, the gymnasts were dealt with in this way. “The sentence that I actually always had to hear was: ‘stop to feel sorry for yourself’. Competitive sports are very hard and you have to bite through, but there are still limits, and you should and should not exceed that, Seitz thinks.
Pain and injuries were basically placed as trifles.
Turner Eli Seitz, German record champion
Seitz: “I still have Difficulties, to weigh me. “
In the interview, Eli Seitz also speaks about the topic of weight with tears in the eyes and visibly moved. Sporty failures have always been attributed to the fact that it was too heavy and too thick anyway. “That was very impressed in my head for me, even today. I still have difficulty weighing myself because I always see it very valuable.”
At that time she felt that the young gymnasts were defined by the weight: “As soon as I was less weighed, I was good. And when I weighed a little more, I was just bad. And no matter what if I was I fell in competition or did not work in training, it was basically the case that it was said: ‘It is no wonder you are just too heavy!’ ”
Excessive behavior and questions about sexuality
As “extremely disturbing”, Eli Seitz felt comments from her trainer Claudia Schunk on her sexuality. “When I had my first friend at some point (…), we sat on the floor with minor gymnasts and she meant: ‘And what about you in bed? You have definitely tried a lot. ‘”She had extremely unsettled this attacking behavior at the time.
Questionable Premium payments To trainer Schunk
Former young gymnasts reported that they had to hand over parts of their victory premiums to Schunk. Seitz also describes such processes. It was about prize money and sponsorship funds: “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.”
Claudia Schunk commented on the allegations of the gymnasts
Schunk writes about these payments when asked by SWR: “As in other centers and other sports, there was a training decline in Mannheim in the past.” As a result, a small part of possible premiums was forwarded to the center in order to optimize the training of the gymnasts (…). “These payments only benefited from the gymnasts (…), not the coaches working there.” With a variety of her former gymnasts and her parents, she is still in regular contact. “Whereby we talk about the negative, but above all positive aspects of the gym. In this context, I also made it clear that it was never my intention to burden the gymnasts and that if my behavior should nevertheless have been perceived. this is sorry. ”
Seitz described her experiences several times to the DTB
The German Turner Association (DTB) knew from Seitz’s experiences in Mannheim that she put everything on the table with her family at the time. She personally switched to Stuttgart. Anyone who knows Eli Seitz knows that she questions things, a property that Schunk could not use for her abuse of power.
DTB reacts to new allegations
The German Turner Association announced the dpa on the new allegations that further reports have been received in the past few weeks. They also affect other bases, including the federal base in Mannheim. “The DTB will let all of these messages – regardless of the period they relate to and whether they concern individual persons or structural topics – let the various processes already initiated,” it said. This also applies to such reports that do not affect current occurrences, but for longer periods. In addition to the temporal classification, the changes that have meanwhile been initiated and brought about at individual bases and on the overall system would also have to be taken into account.
A few weeks ago, she put everything on the table again to the DTB, says Seitz. She demands: “The people who are not correct in this association or in this sport that have to go!”
Only when that happened is there a chance to really change something. “And to find together and to be able to do this sport as great as he and how every single child deserves it!” Because Eli Seitz has a wish: “I definitely don’t want any child or a girl to experience something like that again.”
Prize on Sun., 2.2.2025 10:05 p.m., SWR Sport, SWR
