Olympic bid, competitive sport reform, internal cultural change: President Thomas Weikert was confirmed in office with an overwhelming majority at the General Assembly of the German Olympic Sports Confederation. The 61-year-old has a mountain of tasks ahead of him.
After being re-elected as President of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), Thomas Weikert will start his next term of office until 2026 with challenges he has created himself 438 votes (99 percent) elected. Verena Bentele, Kerstin Holze and Oliver Stegemann were confirmed as Vice Presidents. The CDU politician Jens-Peter Nettekoven is a new member of the management team.
In December 2021, Weikert took over the chief post in early elections in a DOSB leadership crisis surrounding his predecessor Alfons Hörmann. For him, the almost unanimous choice is a “clear sign” that one is satisfied with the work done so far. The former Table Tennis World President also received the unanimous approval of more than 400 delegates for a new attempt at a bid for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. “As a federal government, we expressly welcome and support this,” said Juliane Seifert, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI). She represented Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD). At the end of 2023, the DOSB convention is to decide whether, for which year, with which cities and under what conditions Germany will apply. In the past three decades, six Olympic attempts had been unsuccessful.
For Weikert, the second major project of his now four-year term is a competitive sports reform, with which further sagging, primarily at Olympic level, should be stopped. Since 1992 in Barcelona and until Tokyo 2021, the number of medals has fallen from 82 to 37 plaques. After a major concept developed jointly by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the DOSB, fine-tuning is to take place next year. This restructuring could take hold after Weikert’s ideas at the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.
“I very much doubt that every anonymous letter had the sole aim of pointing out grievances or misconduct.”
In addition, a movement summit on December 13 in Berlin with eight federal ministers and numerous interest groups is intended to give a signal for departure. Weikert has already succeeded in anchoring human rights due diligence in the DOSB statutes. A corresponding resolution was passed in Baden-Baden. In the preamble, the DOSB now commits to respecting all nationally and internationally recognized human rights. “The controversial discussions about the World Cup show how much action and attitude there is still,” he warned.
After the affair surrounding predecessor Hörmann, who was accused in an anonymous letter of having created a “culture of fear” in the DOSB, Weikert wants to promote change in the umbrella organization. “The Presidium will continue the work and development of the DOSB into a modern association with integrity,” he announced. Anonymous letters, such as those that became known last year, have again caused unrest at the DOSB and, in his opinion, are dishonest. “We as the Executive Committee stand for a culture that allows any abuses to be reported to the ethics committee, the ombudsman or the works council. We stand for all allegations being taken seriously and dealt with,” he said. “But I’ll say it very clearly: I very much doubt that every recent anonymous letter was aimed solely at pointing out grievances or misconduct.”