FES director Michael Nitsch and a very expensive bicycle frame
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Institute for Applied Training Science IAT in Leipzig and the Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment FES in Berlin were initially marked as “not going away in the future” and were to be liquidated. Where would elite sport be today without the two “Siamese twins”?
Significantly worse. If we didn’t exist, the medal tally in Olympic and Paralympic sports would look significantly different. Where German athletes still regularly and reliably win medals and are dominant, this level has survived thanks to our first-class FES sports equipment, especially in material-intensive sports, while the IAT traditionally specializes in the area of “software”. For example, evaluating data for training control. In conjunction with the Olympic bases and the coaching academy, these two institutes represent something like the backbone of support for the associations of top Olympic and Paralympic sports. This quality is no longer fundamentally questioned by politicians – unlike after 1989. Sport has shown us this appreciation for a long time. Last year alone, the FES supported twelve Olympic sports, and the IAT had projects for 24 leading Olympic associations.
At the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, “Team Germany” came second in the medal table behind Norway, with the FES being directly involved in 21 of the 27 medals. Nine of the twelve gold medals were won by bobsleigh athletes, lugers and skeleton athletes. Are you expecting a similar flood of medals in the ice track for the Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo (February 6th to 22nd)?
We really hope so. The Dutch traditionally win most medals in speed skating, the Americans in summer sports in swimming and track and field. Every nation has its flagship sport, for us it is bobsleigh and luge. What makes us even more optimistic after this season’s World Cup results is that we haven’t unpacked everything before the games. We didn’t want to give the international competition a chance to copy anything before the games. Such a surprise effect obviously requires that the head coaches in particular have the greatest possible trust in our work. It’s pretty brave and cool of them to wait so long and only present the best material at the peak of the season.
What are you particularly proud of this time?
Here’s to the new generation of two- and four-man bobsleighs for women and men and the skeleton sleds, which, together with the associated runners, are now completely manufactured by FES. A few years ago, these sports sometimes relied on different manufacturers. Today, all of their material comes from a single source – with the exception of luge, where they still have their own developments in Bavarian. The fact that there are no longer “separate worlds” makes us even stronger and is, not least, a great achievement of the national bobsleigh coach René Spieß.
When it comes to ski jumping, however, the situation seems dire. For example, your IAT colleagues have expensively equipped the ski jumps in Klingenthal and Oberstdorf with state-of-the-art sensors. Thanks to the latest technology, every sequence from the run-up to the jump can be made visible to trainers and active participants. Nevertheless, the “Eagles” of the German Ski Association are jumping behind.
The FES is also involved in ski jumping; for example, we are involved in the bindings and provide support for clothing and measurement technology. Basically, it can be said: We are on board in many sports where measurement technology is used by the IAT colleagues. For example, in cycling, rowing or canoe racing, we work hand in hand. The FES supplies the precisely fitting measuring stations, and the partner institute evaluates the results meticulously. Ski jumping is like all other sports. Know-how alone is no guarantee of success. Equipment, athletes and the surrounding team must function perfectly as a unit. All building blocks must fit together optimally. We can help athletes as much as possible; they have to compete alone.
Why do different rules apply to the FES logo on sports equipment compared to company logos from the private sector?
The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Association only allows companies that sell their products on the market to stick their logo on. For us, this de facto amounts to a labeling ban. We are not a private company, but are financed by taxpayers to give top German sport an advantage over the competition. For us, this is an order with the corresponding consequences. That’s why I can’t fully understand that in German sport, for example, different rules apply to sports facilities than to our equipment. Why are we opening our national training center in Kienbaum to foreign teams? We built this center to be ultra-modern for our own athletes and not for their international competition.
Perhaps this will generate some welcome income for operating costs. Speaking of finances. In September 2023, you and successful athletes called for a protest against an impending budget cut. What have you achieved?
According to the draft budget for 2024, our budget of 9.37 million euros should shrink by 22.3 percent. Given our profile, with relatively low material costs compared to personnel costs, in the worst case, over twenty of the almost one hundred jobs at the FES would have been lost. It’s sheer madness when you consider that these are exclusively highly qualified employees who have absolute expertise in their fields. We fought back, with the result that the planned reduction became an increase. This year our total budget, including the IAT and its 150 employees, is 23.4 million euros. We have a vague promise that nothing will change in 2027. The big problem is that it would be the fourth year in a row in which wage increases for our employees, which are stipulated in the employment contracts and must be adhered to, will not be financially compensated by the federal government. So far we have made do with reallocations and savings. But this scope has now been exhausted and both institutes are threatened with a deficit of over one million euros for the coming year if this budget remains. A situation for the budget of the two partner institutes that is completely incomprehensible to me. It hits FES and IAT in a phase in which top-class sport is actually supposed to be advanced with an independent agency and a special sports funding law as well as a separate state ministry.
