Interview with Kim Bui: “An eating disorder is often a cry for help” – Sport

Kim Bui, a three-time Olympian, knows the ups and downs of her sport. In an interview, she talks about her bulimia, which things only became clear to her during the Corona break – and what the cooperation between coaches and athletes should be like.

Kim Bui, 34, ended her unprecedented gymnastics career last summer – after more than 20 years in the national squad and third place with the team at the European Championships in Munich. The former athlete spokeswoman has since worked on a television documentary (“Hunger for Gold”) and relentlessly addressed the dangers of eating disorders in top-class sport in her biography (“45 Seconds”, co-author Andreas Matlé, publisher Edel Sports). During an interview in a café in Bad Cannstatt in Stuttgart, she pleads passionately for reforms, for a gymnastics sport that gives athletes room to develop their personality. Because many things in everyday gymnastics used to be considered normal: “Today I know it was too much.”