The Germans win something in top-class sport this summer. Gold medals these days at the Track Cycling World Championships in Glasgow, for example, titles at the European Games a few weeks ago in canoe racing, not to mention the World Championship triumphs last year. The bobsleigh pilots are preparing for the next gold train in winter. One last time?
This is how the silent assistants of success sound, this summer more eloquent and angry than ever before. “We are currently experiencing a dramatic development,” says the rather relaxed, experienced sports official Professor Martin Engelhardt, chairman of the sponsoring association of the Institute for Applied Training Sciences (IAT) and the Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment (FES): “If at the announced cut in funds for the institutes remains, then this will have a massive impact on the success of Germans in top-class sport. Then young, capable, motivated employees will have to be laid off, bang, gone.”
