Games in Paris: “Shameful”: Witt criticizes Germany’s Olympic performance

Olympic figure skating champion Katarina Witt has expressed harsh criticism of Germany’s performance at the recent Games in Paris. “A tenth place in the medal table is quite shameful for such a leading sporting nation that we once were,” said the gold medal winner from 1984 and 1988 in an interview with the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”.

She sees this as a reflection of the situation “in which our country as a whole finds itself. The athletes themselves are least to blame for this; it is the circumstances that simply do not allow them the training they need to fight for the top spot in the world,” added Witt. “We are becoming more and more insignificant – unfortunately politicians still don’t want to admit it. “That’s probably why the elections are the way they are, and why the East is rebelling a little more than it has done so far.”

Jungle crown is worth more than an Olympic victory

Witt, who lived in Chemnitz for many years, said she was sure that this was also a result of the transition. Only in the last three or four years has people started to pay a little more attention to East Germany’s past. There was a very good competitive sports system in the GDR, which was destroyed when the Berlin Wall fell.

The 59-year-old spoke out in favor of rewarding Olympic gold significantly more. “If, as one athlete so aptly put it, you get 20,000 euros for an Olympic victory and perhaps another 5,000 for the next victory, but the jungle crown is worth 100,000 euros, something is going wrong,” said Witt. “15 days of emotional stripping in contrast to 15 years of hard and deprived training for top Olympic performance.” She suggested 50,000 or even 100,000 euros as a reward for gold.

ZDF shows film about Witt’s Olympic comeback

On German Unity Day on October 3rd, ZDF is broadcasting a film about Witt, which deals with her seventh place at the 1994 Olympic comeback in Lillehammer. In the film entitled “A freestyle that stays”, which is already available in the ZDF media library, the actress Lavinia Nowak plays Witt.