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Sophie Scheder at the Rio 2016 Olympics
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MIKE BLAKE / REUTERS
After Pauline Schäfer, 2017 world champion on the balance beam, and five other young women went public and accused a trainer of psychological violence and humiliation, she is now receiving support from another athlete.
The person concerned also defends herself.
Schäfer's allegations in SPIEGEL received a lot of attention.
The focus is on Gabriele Frehse, who was active as a trainer in Chemnitz for many years and has coached countless gymnasts in the performance area.
Together with five other athletes, Schäfer accuses the trainer of mentally abusing her and driving her into an eating disorder.
Frehse had already been surprised to SPIEGEL, according to her lawyer, the allegations should contain a "multitude of untruths and baseless allegations."
She repeated this point of view in another reaction.
“The allegations are baseless, and there is a lot of slander in them.
I am very sad about it and would not have expected it.
I have to work through all of this first, "said the accused, who reserves the right to take legal action, the MDR.
Differences instead of psychological terror?
Her protégé Sophie Scheder also commented.
The 2016 Olympic bronze medalist on the uneven bars reported on her Facebook page about »Moments when I couldn't always come up with a common denominator with my trainer.
But such differences exist in all areas of life and, in my opinion, are quite normal.
Every athlete perceives what is being said differently, and the fact that the tone of the coach is sometimes sharper should not be a reproach, it is simply human.
Frehse is not exonerated by these statements.
It is possible that the trainer's behavior towards other athletes was different - or that Scheder perceived Frehse's behavior differently.
National team colleague Schäfer found the tone and behavior of her long-term supervisor to be inhuman.
"To be humiliated every day - that leaves its mark at some point," said the 23-year-old.
Again and again, Schäfer continued, she was verbally insulted, also because of her supposedly excessive body weight.
DTB announces clarification
Labor law and possibly even criminally much more explosive is that the trainer Schäfer's sister and training colleague Helene apparently administered a prescription pain reliever without medical indication.
It is undisputed that the German Gymnastics Federation (DTB) then excluded the instructor employed at the Chemnitz Olympic Training Center from DTB training and competition measures for 2019.
It is still unclear whether there can be a future on the gymnastics podium for the accused at all after the renewed allegations.
The association announced in a statement that the facts would be clarified immediately and independently.
"If the allegations are confirmed, this would in no way correspond to the values of the DTB and the framework conditions for responsible training," the message said.
The responsible DTB sports director Wolfgang Willam initially gave no statement.
In January 2019, the DTB appointed the Cologne sports scientist Britt Dahmen as ombudsperson with regard to physical, psychological and sexualised violence.
In the recent past, especially in the USA, Great Britain, New Zealand, the Netherlands and most recently in Switzerland, coaches, mostly former athletes, have been accused of exposing them to mental and verbal violence.
The case of longtime US team doctor Larry Nassar had even triggered worldwide horror.
In 2018, the now 57-year-old was sentenced to a prison term of at least 40 years in more than 250 cases for the sexual abuse of gymnasts.
Record world champion Simone Biles is also one of Nassar's victims.
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