Sports soldier
Sports soldiers are people who, as members of the military in their country, are financed by the state primarily for the exercise of their sport . The personal bond with the military differs from country to country. In some countries there are also other support systems, such as customs , border troops or the police . At the international level, the sports soldiers are organized in the Military Sports Association (CISM). Internationally, the idea of sports soldiers was invented by Swedes in 1912 , which gave his male Olympic squad the opportunity to be drafted for up to six months of military training and to concentrate fully on training and competition preparation during this time. That year the only Olympic Games in which Sweden won the Nations Cup took place.
Sponsored athletes
The Bundeswehr's sports promotion group comes into play as financial support, particularly in smaller and marginal sports . It is not uncommon for the sponsored people to participate in competitive sports only with this funding. In addition to Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Italy , France , China , Russia , Ukraine , Slovenia , Sweden , Latvia , Lithuania , Slovakia , Finland , Norway , Romania , the USA , Japan and Spain also practice such models . Military world championships are also held. According to the information service of the Bundestag, 63.22 million euros were earmarked for this in Germany in 2011.
United States
In the USA there are e.g. As the US Army World Class Athlete Program (WCAP), whose job is only to nationally and internationally classified athletes army personnel are exempt to training and competition, so that they do for the Olympic Games or World Championships or Paralympic Games qualification . The program is based in Fort Carson, Colorado, which gives the opportunity to use the American cadre training center in Colorado Springs . The WCAP gives active soldiers, members of the National Guard and former soldiers this opportunity as part of military exercises and at the same time enables them to continue their military careers.
Germany
The practice in the USA stands in contrast to funding by the German Armed Forces, where special sports funding companies only train company members who are thus temporary professional athletes , but do not start a dual career in the true sense.
In Germany, military sports financing has been particularly noticeable in winter sports in recent years. Many top athletes are soldiers and are or have been sponsored by the Bundeswehr , such as Ronny Ackermann , Tobias Angerer , Andreas Birnbacher , Marcel Nguyen , Annette Dytrt , Susi Erdmann , Anni Friesinger , Michael Greis , Ricco Groß , Georg Hackl , Sven Hannawald , Andrea Henkel , Silke Kraushaar-Pielach , Stefan Lindemann , Frank Luck , Manuel Machata , Claudia Nystad , Sylke Otto , Aljona Savchenko , René Sommerfeldt , Axel Teichmann, Gundolf Thoma and Kati Wilhelm , but also summer athletes such as Falk Balzer , Ralf Bartels , Anja Dittmer , Heiko Meyer , Silke Rottenberg or Ronny Ziesmer .
At the Olympic Games, the state amateurs have long made up the majority in the German team. For example, in 2010 only the German teams competed in curling and ice hockey without state amateurs.
Sports soldiers also played a prominent role in the GDR sports system . Many well-known top athletes such as Udo Beyer , Dietmar Lorenz , Detlef Ultsch , Henry Maske , Falk Boden or Wolfgang Hoppe and Bogdan Musiol trained under professional conditions in the sports clubs of the Army Sports Association Vorwärts ( NVA ) and the Dynamo Sports Association ( VP , MfS ) .
Austria
In Austria, the sponsored athletes include B. Friedrich Pinter , Wilhelm Denifl , Bernhard Gruber and Martin Tauber , in Switzerland Simon Hallenbarter .
Italy
Sports soldiers in Italy are or were Wilfried Pallhuber , Giorgio Di Centa , Silvio Fauner , Christian Oberstolz , Patrick Gruber and Alberto Tomba .
France
In France, they include the Olympic champions Vincent Defrasne and Raphaël Poirée , who ended his career at the military world championships.
Job-related situation
Sports soldiers only have to perform part of the duties that soldiers have to perform. So they do z. B. only a shortened basic military service and are also exempt from maneuvers.
In Germany, over 820 athletes are in the service of the Bundeswehr . A total of around 1000 athletes are under contract with the ( federal ) police , including z. B. Claudia Pechstein and Uschi Disl .
The majority of the sports soldiers have chosen the career of NCOs with or without portepee , only a few serve in the team grade or as an officer : The latter include Sepp Ferstl and Ingo Schultz (both last in the rank of captain ), the triathletes Thomas Bartsch (captain), Sabrina Wimmer ( pharmacist ) and Astrid Karnikowski (first lieutenant ). The situation is similar with civil servant athletes , who mostly pursue the middle career , rarely the upper career .
criticism
Many state amateurs enter the state service immediately after completing their schooling in order to concentrate on their sport. In the Bundeswehr, parallel training in an apprenticeship or higher education institution is only voluntary, and so there are sports soldiers who have no career prospects after leaving sports. It is also criticized that athletes who have large advertising income still serve as sports soldiers and therefore only compete for the Bundeswehr because of their advertising function, sometimes even appearing at medal awards in uniform. The subsidy for athletes through the Bundeswehr is also criticized in view of the possibility of support through the civil foundation Deutsche Sporthilfe .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Arnd Krüger : "Buying victories is positively degrading". The European origins of Government Pursuit of National Prestige through Sports. International Journal of the History of Sport 12 (1995), 2, 201-218.
- ↑ Sports promotion groups of the Bundeswehr are spared reform plans ( Memento from February 10, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ a b US Army World Class Athlete Program Official Site
- ↑ cf. Arnd Krüger : Olympic Games as a means of politics. In: Eike Emrich, Martin-Peter Büch, Werner Pitsch (ed.): Olympic Games - still up to date? Values, goals, reality from a multidisciplinary perspective. Universitätsverlag des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken 2013, ISBN 978-3-86223-108-9 , pp. 35–54, esp. Pp. 46f. (online at: universaar.uni-saarland.de )
- ↑ Ex-Olympic champion on sports soldiers: "Almost already military festival". In: taz.de . February 6, 2010, accessed December 30, 2016 .
- ↑ Jonas Nonnenmann: Soldiers with studs: March into the gate! In: Spiegel Online . July 6, 2011, accessed December 30, 2016 .
- ↑ BwForum - Discussion forums around the Bundeswehr - Sports soldiers. In: bwforum-online.de. April 19, 2005, archived from the original on June 17, 2016 ; accessed on December 30, 2016 .
- ↑ Life in the one-way street , Berliner Zeitung, August 22, 2008; Retrieved April 24, 2012.