Just last week, movement entered the world of gymnastics, at least in a figurative sense: The Stuttgart public prosecutor’s office is now also investigating those responsible beyond the mats in connection with the allegations of massive abuse of power at the Federal Training Center for Women in Stuttgart. The focus is on current and former presidium members and staff in leadership positions, five at the Swabian Gymnastics Federation and four at the German Gymnastics Federation.
It concerns the suspicion “of, in some cases, attempted, intentional bodily harm and coercion in several cases by omission.” Specifically known are, as announced by the DTB, the Chairman of Olympic Top Sport, Thomas Gutekunst, and the honorary president Alfons Hölzl. Both stated that they rejected the allegations.
It all began just over a year ago and seemed harmless at first. Meolie Jauch posts that she is ending her gymnastics career: “because mentally it is no longer possible.” A chain reaction follows. For weeks, former gymnasts, coaches, and parents describe the psychological and physical abuse that apparently occurred, partly since the early 2000s in the so-called successful “Ländle”: threats, humiliations, ignoring, punitive training, competitions with broken bones, painkillers, eating disorders and even the phrase “I will kill you” when things did not go as the coach wanted.
Numerous young women report therapies to rediscover their bodies and self-confidence. It is also publicly known that Olympic gymnast Tabea Alt had already formulated the misstand in a lengthy letter addressed to those responsible in the summer of 2021. What has happened since then?
Wins before the Employment Court
At the end of January 2025, the senior national training center coach Marie-Luise Mai and Giacomo Camiciotti were dismissed. Both took legal action against the dismissal. At the European Championship in the spring, the underage Helen Kevric, who was coached by Camiciotti at the Paris Games, stated that she was not a “victim of abuse.” Thomas Gutekunst denied the widely circulated rumor across the country that Kevric’s father threatened to move to Bosnia and Herzegovina if the coach did not return.
Shortly thereafter, two American women were hired to lead the training in Stuttgart. By the end of the year Mai and Camiciotti won their labor-law proceedings. The termination is deemed invalid. The judge in the case Mai vs. STB had, at the end of July, stated that in his view there was “no suspicion of a criminal offense.”
The prosecutors view this differently. In early February 2025, they announced that an investigation had been opened against a coach of the Stuttgart Gymnastics Forum on suspicion of coercion in several cases. As of December 2025, investigations are ongoing against the two, as well as a third coach from Stuttgart, on suspicion of dangerous or intentional bodily harm and coercion in over 25 cases.
In total, the State Criminal Police Office searched 13 locations and interviewed 77 witnesses. But so far, no investigation files have been released, not even to colleagues at the labor court. Regarding the timeframe of the investigations, the guideline remains: “No statement can be made about the timing of the completion of individual or all investigations.”
A Call for Restraint
The German Gymnastics Federation had also reacted quickly: Still in January 2025, it announced an external investigation by the Frankfurt law firm Rettenmaier, as well as the establishment of an external expert council to process the results and draw conclusions. President Hölzl promised that nothing would be “swept under the rug.” The insights from Tabea Alt’s letter had already been incorporated in 2021 into the “Performance with Respect” process and local measures.
Now, with the start of its own investigations, the public prosecutor requested delaying interviews of witnesses by third parties to avoid compromising their own fact-finding. The DTB complied, withholding decisive parts of its own investigation. The work costs money, as does legal representation and consultation, estimated by the association at least 650,000 euros by summer.
The Swabian Gymnastics Federation, as employer, had issued the terminations of Mai and Camiciotti. It also says it adheres to the prosecutors’ request to refrain from interviewing those affected. For this reason, the labor court case was ultimately lost, according to the argument. On the other hand, in the eyes of many affected, STB staff over the years allowed what happened with their eyes wide open—the system had been successful.
Among them was also the national training center director Michael Breuning, who retired in March. The assessment by those affected has now been implicitly confirmed by the prosecutors through the initiation of procedures against officials. The STB appeals the labor dispute and hopes for early access to the files. This also brings financial burdens for him; managing director Matthias Ranke describes the financial situation as “complex.”
Education Minister Calls for Clarification
And then there is the Baden-Württemberg State Sports Association, abbreviated LSVBW. It is the operator of the Stuttgart Olympic Training Center, which includes the “House of the Athletes” and the boarding school where some of those affected lived for a time. Behind it stands a funder, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of Baden-Württemberg, which, via the LSVBW—according to the minister—provides about 1.6 million euros annually for high-performance sport personnel in gymnastics.
And so Minister Theresa Schopper used one of the most effective tools, as she stated at a March 2025 state parliament hearing that the LSVBW “may no longer forward state funds to the STB” intended for coaches or high-performance staff until the demand for a “complete clarification of the incidents” is fulfilled. Shortly afterwards, the sports association presented a draft for a working group, which then stated that “the processing of the current incidents in gymnastics” is not their task.
AG member Carmen Borggrefe, Professor of Sports Sociology and Sports Management at the University of Stuttgart, reaffirmed in October: “We are not supposed to provide clarification, but to analyze structures.” The ministry now explains, given the difference between its own demand and the AG’s approach: “There is no discrepancy.” The AG, chaired by Klaus Pflieger, a former Attorney General in Stuttgart, is also the only player currently interviewing affected gymnasts.
Indeed, last year there was competition as well: At the European Championship in Leipzig, the women’s team won silver, with substantial contributions from 17-year-old Helen Kevric, who later severely injured her knee in the next competition. Karina Schönmaier, who — like most of the senior squad athletes — trains at the Chemnitz national training center, won two gold medals. Head coach Gerben Wiersma continues to preach his credo of “happy, healthy gymnasts,” but regarding the entire abuse debate, he seems oddly detached.
“I Am Sorry for Everyone”
He says that at the time of his appointment about four years ago he was not informed about Tabea Alt’s letter or measures in Stuttgart. At training camps, he said he had never witnessed the abusive practices described, and he did not know of any accusations when he proposed Camiciotti as an Olympic coach in the summer of 2024. “I am sorry for everyone, for the gymnasts and for the coaches,” Wiersma said at the time, and he assumes that no one acted “with ill intentions.”
What remains? The investigations by the State Criminal Police will illuminate the chronology: who actually knew what at what time? Were reports filed where necessary, possibly also with youth welfare offices or the police? This also concerns the question: Did those responsible look away with both eyes because the success of the Stuttgart gymnasts always seemed so tangible? For all transgressions below the statutory criminal threshold, it will depend on how seriously the DTB takes its own reckoning.
Michelle Timm, a former gymnast herself and a trainer of young boys who testified to the misstand in Stuttgart, had informed the DTB in October 2024 about the “catastrophic” conditions. Today she says about the past year: “I think it is hard to describe what happened in the last year. It was a grueling year for many people. For me personally it destroyed a lot, and from the initial hope there is hardly anything left. One had to endure a lot, and the ongoing passage of time is no help, though I am aware that it takes patience.”
