2024-09-06 05:45:32
On Thursday, Germany won two gold medals in swimming. Ute Schinkitz was partly responsible for the success. But the national coach did not only have words of praise.
Thanks to Taliso Engel and Elena Semechin, Germany has now won nine gold medals at the Paralympics. The golden Thursday with two triumphs lifted the German team to tenth place in the medal table. A partial success that national swimming coach Ute Schinkitz did not want to rest on. Instead, she was worried about the future.
“We keep noticing that the successes are decreasing from game to game! Yes, a lot has happened, especially in terms of athlete development, but what about the coaches?” she complained.
“We need well-trained coaches. This has been known for years,” she continued. Not nearly enough is being done in this area. Top performance requires “coaches who stand at the edge of the pool every day or wherever in other sports and implement the necessary training content, direct and lead the pedagogical-social leadership and convey the fun and joy.”
This is “not possible and not possible to maintain alongside a job,” stressed the national coach. A young coach wants to be able to “live from his work, maybe start a family, build a house or whatever. But they don’t have this perspective with annual contracts or a salary level with no perspective.” On this basis, “top performances are not possible.” Then Germany would have to say goodbye to the “claim to be world class.”
She noticed that the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) was repeatedly “slowed down at the next political level” when it tried to improve things. Previously, in Paris, Chef de Mission Karl Quade had already criticized the way trainers were treated in Germany.