Thinkers and admonishers in sport

The professor of sports economics and sports sociology was one of the most eloquent advocates of sports and athletes. He was adamant that careers should not be judged on medals alone.

Er appeared as an unconventional thinker, as an uncomfortable admonisher, but above all as an eloquent advocate of sport and athletes. Eike Emrich, a discus thrower and shot putter in his youth, was a sports scientist, sociologist and economist. He opposed the supposed plannability of sporting success and called for a redefinition of the content of top-class sport.

“What kind of sport do we want to have in an open society? A young person must be able to say after their sports career: It was worth it even without a medal,” he demanded in the FAZ in 2015 and accused associations and officials of conducting a secondary competition for medals in which they try to prove their own performance. Athletes used them as a means to an end.

Emrich’s arguments could hardly be contradicted. The professor of sports economics and sports sociology at Saarland University in Saarbrücken was a first-class practitioner as the former head of the Saarland Olympic training center and vice president for competitive sports of the German Athletics Association. He habilitated with a thesis on the effectiveness of sports funding. Emrich had fallen silent in recent years. As it became known over the weekend, he passed away on Thursday at the age of 65 after a long, serious illness.