Swimming: How Sarah Köhler wants to get medals and improve the association

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Sarah Köhler at the 2019 World Cup: on the way to the top

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Bernd Thissen / DPA

Sarah Koehler smiles. These 4: 05.99 minutes, which are behind their names on the scoreboard after the 400 meter freestyle final on Saturday, make them happy. Not because the last opportunity to qualify for the Olympic Games was just under a second and a half below the required norm; she already had her ticket in her pocket for the long journeys. This race was about more. It was about showing that it has overcome its weakness of the past few years.

“The 400 have somehow become my kryptonite,” Köhler told SPIEGEL.

Too intense, too hectic, nothing really wanted to fit on the route on which Köhler has held the German record since 2017.

Instead, the Magdeburg native has developed into super Sarah over the long distances, and has been a medal candidate for the Olympics since she won silver in the 1500 meter freestyle 2019 at the latest.

In order to be able to “add something more without dying” in Tokyo even after 1300 meters, this development over the 400 meters is a good sign.

On Sunday afternoon she was able to convince again over the 800 meters in Berlin.

8: 23.82 minutes - that's third place in this year's world rankings.

The DSV is there without a sports director

Good news, Sarah Köhler could also use it away from the pool. Because the 26-year-old is currently not only looking at her second Olympic Games. As the spokesperson for the swimmers, Köhler has also been the spokesperson for all active participants in the German Swimming Association (DSV) for several weeks. And problems are piling up there that Köhler could not have expected when she and water polo player Tobias Preuss accepted the election to represent the active players.

The DSV has been without a competitive sports director for almost eight weeks. The association had surprisingly separated from Thomas Kurschilgen in late February. Freed him, says the DSV. Dismissed him without notice, says his lawyer. The association is silent about the reasons, invoking "pending proceedings". A connection was made to the allegations of sexual violence against the open water national trainer Stefan Lurz, who had since resigned and which SPIEGEL had reported on shortly before. Lurz denies the allegations.

Kurschilgen is said to have not followed up the incriminating email from a swimmer, who has now spoken in SPIEGEL, in 2019.

At least formally, there is probably no wrongdoing Kurschilgen, it is said internally. There are also allegations that the association leadership around President Marco Troll, who was elected in November, used the matter as an excuse to get rid of the power-conscious Kurschilgen.

The fact is that this abrupt separation created a vacuum at a central decision-making position in competitive sports, and that just a few months before the Olympic Games, which with Köhler, with double world champion Florian Wellbrock, are finally supposed to turn the tide.

In the DSV, once so spoiled for success, which has now been waiting for an Olympic medal for 13 years.

PR photo from the brothel

The fact that the board had previously presented an interim solution to former water polo national player Dirk Klingenberg and withdrew the following day after a press article about sponsorship of Klingenberg's oldie team from 2014 by a Berlin brothel appeared on their radar is another embarrassing one Chapter these days.

A situation that frightens all the national swimming coaches, who recently expressed their concern in a letter to the president and board of directors.

In order to actually be able to swim precious metals in Tokyo in the summer, "we need calm and trust, in connection with a goal-oriented, reliable, competent, professional and sovereign leadership", it said there.

You are pushing for a quick solution, urgently advocating reinstatement of the fired Kurschilgen, but also offering an interim solution: Michael Groß.

Michael Groß, the German swimming star, the Albatross: is he going to start again for the DSV?

Photo: Jörg Schmitt / picture-alliance / dpa

Groß himself, who had already worked with the sports management last year, confirmed discussions, said that it was now the turn of the DSV.

A decision in favor of the large solution would initially ensure calm in this mess.

But the personnel has been dragging on for two weeks without anything having happened.

Instead, in competitive sport, with every week that moves into the country, the impression that the new board of directors, which started to strengthen popular sport, is simply hopelessly overwhelmed with problems that it has created itself increases.

A lot of work to do

Köhler also signed the letter from the national coach as the athletes' spokeswoman.

She had already expressed incomprehension about the separation from Kurschilgen.

This decision at a "worst possible point in time" creates "even more uncertainty, unrest and fear," she shared with Preuss.

She was also amazed at the Klingenberg cause, after all, a simple internet search would have been enough to find the explosive report: "One wonders how carefully and conscientiously people have worked in the past few months."

Sarah Köhler (left) at the World Cup award ceremony for the 1500 meter freestyle: Another medal is to be found in Tokyo

Photo: Bernd Thissen / dpa

While other swimmers also see it as part of their athletic job to fade out such side scenes - especially so shortly before the biggest sporting event in the world - in order to concentrate on the essentials, Köhler plunges into the midst of the association's internal chaos for them. "I'm someone who likes to help and I hope that I can achieve something good for us athletes," she said of her motivation. In general, she is happy that she has something else for her head in addition to sport, says Köhler, who has also been preparing for the law exam for several weeks.

In the Lurz case, too, it was important for the recently elected active spokespersons to take a stand immediately. Together with Preuss, shortly after the allegations became known, Köhler demanded a "comprehensive and independent investigation" and sharply condemned "all forms of violence and abuse of power". She wrote in a statement: "We would like to encourage all those who have felt exposed to violence, abuse of power or the crossing of boundaries, today or in the past, to defend themselves against it." The association still has a lot of work to do on the subject of sexual violence, says Köhler told SPIEGEL: "I think that many are not even clear about what is abuse of power, where does it start?"

It is not only important for this topic that the active members have recently also had a spokesman in the Presidium, "someone who can influence, has a say," said Köhler. There, in the presidium, the G-question should also be clarified at the end of next week, according to the board of directors. Köhler thinks: "The decision is more than overdue."