Gymn Forum: 1991 - A Successful Year for International Gymnastics<br> Double Interview with Both FIG Technical Committee Presidents<br> Ellen Berger (Women) and Karl-Heinz Zschocke (Men)

1991 - A Successful Year for International Gymnastics
Double Interview with Both FIG Technical Committee Presidents,
Ellen Berger (Women) and Karl-Heinz Zschocke (Men)

OTA, 1/92

An eventful gymnastics year came to an end with the International DTB Cup in December in Stuttgart. The two winners, Lavinia Milosovici (ROM) and Vitaly Scherbo (URS) are leading the gymnastics generation that wants to fight for an Olympic medal in Barcelona this year. Ellen Berger and Karl-Heinz Zschocke, who have held the office of President of their respective technical committees since 1976 and 1984, respectively, were reconfirmed as candidates for the Technical Committee chairmanship by the DTB Presidium. They will stand for re-election at the 68th FIG Congress, which will be held immediately before the Olympic Games in Salou near Barcelona. OTA talked to the two Berliners in Stuttgart about the balance sheet and outlook for the 1992.

OTA: There were top-class performances in Stuttgart at the end of the season – was this the best way to end a good gymnastics year?

EB: Definitely! The excellent performances shown here represent a further improvement in the level of world gymnastics for women. In 1991 we were able to see progress in stability, expression, and exercise content worldwide. We attribute this primarily to the compulsory programs.

KHZ: It was also a successful year for men’s gymnastics, with record attendance at the world championships and our efforts to give the execution of the routine greater importance than before. In the past there was a trend to offer more and more difficulties. Now we are where we wanted to be: manageable routines are shown.

OTA: Who is the female/male gymnast of 1991 for you, personally?

EB: For me it’s Tatiana Gutsu of the USSR, who finished 2nd here. She does technically perfect gymnastics, with expression, has the appropriate training content and, in my opinion, compared to the competition, she still has the greatest reserves. I also like Shannon Miller of the USA very much, and I think that in the Olympic year we can count on the little Hungarian Henrietta Onodi again.

KHZ: The lone leaders this season were once again the Soviet gymnasts – I don’t want to single out a particular gymnast. The basis for this is their above-average technical level. There is another team that performed very convincingly: Korea, 6th at the world championships!

OTA: Based on such world-class performances, how do the German women and men classify themselves with the 1991 balance sheet?

KHZ: Our world championships men’s team deserves a lot of praise, especially for the performance in the team competition! They have thus created the necessary conditions for preparing for the Olympic Games. Yes, and I would definitely like to mention Sylvio Kroll, who showed how highly valued he is in a tough battle.

EB: Of course, it’s a little harder for me to talk about the performance of the German female gymnasts. After they had reached their self-imposed goal at the world championships of participating in the Olympics, I am disappointed with the performance here in Stuttgart. We know that we are not among the best in the world at the moment. But so much instability, errors on FX – it doesn’t have to be that way! There were improvements on B, I don’t want to overlook that. It also seems to me that we have a bit too much complacency, but we will probably not get further than 10th place…

OTA: In addition to this absolute sporting highlight, the 1992 Olympic year offers a number of other “scoops,” for the first time in this large number, for the first time with drastic changes…

EB: European championships, world championships, the Olympics at the end of July – all of them are extremely demanding. As for the new format of the world individual championships in Paris, it remains to be seen whether this will hold up. In any case, it will be good for the popularity of gymnastics!

KHZ: I see things similarly. As is well known, there were a lot of pros and cons beforehand, a lot of sensible considerations, and also fears of ruining apparatus gymnastics with such a championships on the individual apparatus. I think such a mode really has pros and cons, and again they are different for each federation and for each gymnast. Many smaller federations say they can no longer afford an annual world championships; on the other hand, they see opportunities in this mode to get a world champion one day, since much more targeted preparation is possible. At the moment we can’t say how this development will continue – the organization alone raises a number of completely new problems – and we will be wiser after Paris and be able to draw our conclusions for further competitions. But it will be important that the 1992 world championships gives the sport a chance to become more popular and, as a result, to better market gymnastics’ performance.