Aachen TG

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The Aachener Turn-Gemeinde 1862 e. V. (short: ATG or Aachener TG ) is one of the oldest and largest sports clubs in Aachen . It was founded on January 13, 1862 as a pure gymnastics club and consists of seven departments. In these more than 1000 club members practice health, leisure and competitive sports. The club is a member of the German Gymnastics Federation and the German Sports Federation .

The Aachener TG has its headquarters in the club's own sports facility "Am Chorusberg", which consists of a sports field, a club house with fitness and sanitary rooms as well as a bistro and office space.

history

ATG House Chorusberg

At a time when gymnastics had become more and more popular in Prussia in the 1860s and culminated in annual German gymnastics festivals , numerous gymnastics clubs were founded. After the "Aachener Turnverein von 1847 eV", it was the ATG in 1862 that joined this movement with its founding and joined the umbrella organization "Turngau Aachen 1864 eV" founded in 1864. A year later, the members received a gymnastics pass, which entitles them to take part in competitions, which at the time were often held as open-air events. On September 25, 1885, the pre-gymnastics body was officially founded and a youth department was set up two years later.

From the turn of the century, the club expanded its range and offered football for the first time from 1900 and fistball from 1903 . In 1907 the ATG set up an old man's department and in 1912 a women's department. In 1919, the "Aachener Sportverein (ASV)" founded in 1906 as "BC Amicitia" joined the ATG, which enabled both hockey and handball - mostly field handball in the early years - to be offered. A year later, a girls' department was set up and the ATG was entered in the register of associations . In the same year, the association acquired a plot of land with a sports field on the Chorusberg, which was inaugurated on October 1, 1921 after appropriate renovation and expansion measures and has since served as a sporting and social meeting point and from 1968 as an office.

In 1923 the 500th member joined the ATG and the handball players organized themselves into their own department. At the same time, the merger with the ASV was dissolved by mutual agreement on December 31, 1923, whereupon 72 athletes left the ATG and the “Aachener Sportverein Schwarz-Rot 06 e. V. ”founded. Only the hockey department remained with the ATG until further notice. At the club's own sports field, further redesigns were necessary for the implementation of ball sports and sports games, which ended on May 31, 1926 with the official opening of the field. In addition, athletes interested in the athletic disciplines could now be offered better opportunities for training and competition.

The seizure of power by Hitler on January 30, 1933 also had an impact on the ATG's club life. After a major change in the management of the club, the ATG was commissioned to organize the Rheinisches Landesturnfest in Aachen in 1934. A year later, a boxing department was founded in the club , but it was not permanent. At the same time, due to government orders, the children's groups under 10 years of age were dissolved and youth work in the association was prohibited. Instead, the 10 to 14 year old youngsters had to be transferred to the German Jungvolk . In the course of the Second World War , the evacuation of Aachen was ordered in September 1944, whereupon the friendly " Wald - Merscheider Turnverein 1861" took over the sponsorship of the ATG and thus many ATG club members could find accommodation in the Bergisches Land .

After the war, most of the members returned to Aachen, first elected a provisional board in February 1946 and a regular new board in October, which received confirmation from the local court and, in 1947, approval from the military government that was in office until 1949. Club life could now be fully resumed and in 1951 a new basketball and fencing department was added. In 1953 the ATG acquired a forest and meadow property in the Vichtbachtal between Mulartshütte and Zweifall , on which it built a rural youth home with recreational sports facilities, which was inaugurated in June 1957.

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary in 1962, the clubhouse on the Chorusberg was fundamentally expanded and expanded in order to offer the now more than 1000 members a central meeting point and a corresponding supply of drinks and snacks. In 1963, the ATG Winter Run was launched, which has been held annually since then and runs from the rural youth home in Vichtbachtal to the regular course on the Chorusberg with a length of 18.2 km. At the same time the expansion of the club continued and in 1966 a volleyball group was formed and in 1967 a mother and child group. One year later, the office on Chorusberg No. 10 was officially set up with a part-time manager.

In 1975 a volleyball department was founded in the club with a connection to the German Volleyball Association , whose 1st men's team made it to the top league in 1982 and whose 1st women's team made it into the association league in the same year. In the same year, the first men's handball team was promoted to the league. In the meantime more than 1500 members were active in the association, which were supplemented in 1985 by the introduction of a folk dance group .

In the next few decades there were considerable structural changes in the Aachener Turn community. The club concentrated increasingly on the successful and popular fields of athletics, gymnastics, volleyball and basketball and removed football and hockey and, most recently, handball from the range of sports on offer and sold the youth home in Vichtbachtal. At the same time, the association increasingly opened up to general health and recreational sports and the new departments for fitness, GESUFIT (health and fitness courses) and everyone were created. Since then, the number of members of the entire association has remained constant at just over 1000 permanent members.

On the occasion of the celebrations for the 150th anniversary of the club in 2012, the ATG received the Jahn sign from the German Gymnastics Association.

Departments

basketball

The basketball department has been an integral part of ATG since it was founded in 1951. Four men's teams and five youth teams are now competing in the different leagues, with the 1st men's team having been in the regional league since 2014 and the 2nd team staying in the regional league. The 3rd team runs in the district league, the 4th team in the district class and forms the “perspective team” of men and young people who are recruited from the youth classes.

The base of the men's teams are the youth teams U12 to U18, who play in the youth leagues and for which a U10 team was formed in 2015 due to high demand.

For many years now, members of the basketball department have been taking part in the annual “NRW Streetball Tour”, which has been taking place in several cities in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1994 and is organized in different categories by the West German Basketball Association . It is under the auspices of the Ministry of Family, Youth, Culture and Sport of North Rhine-Westphalia and is supported by the sporting youth of the State Sports Association NRW and the AOK Rheinland / Hamburg . In 2011 and 2012, the ATG hosted the opening event.

fitness

The fitness department is aimed primarily at older members who want to do something for their personal well-being in the form of moderate muscle building and general endurance without performance stress and competitions. The age-appropriate training takes place in the fitness room on the club's own premises or in the nearby Aachen forest and consists of cardiovascular training, problem zone training and relaxation techniques.

GESUFIT

In the GESUFIT (health and fitness) department, the ATG offers over 40 public health courses for members and non-members, some of which are supported by the respective health insurance companies. The most popular courses are getting used to the water and swimming lessons for children, exercise projects with daycare centers and elementary schools, aqua fitness, fitness courses, body styling , balance gymnastics, power body training, indoor and outdoor fitness for men, spinal exercises , yoga , walking and Nordic walking , badminton and many others more.

In the context of rehabilitation measures , courses for orthopedic patients, for patients with peripheral arterial occlusive disease and for heart attack patients as well as for patients in cancer follow-up are on the program. The rehabilitation sport offers are recognized according to the agreement on rehabilitation sport §44 SGB IX and the participants can get their fees reimbursed.

Most of the courses, if they cannot be held on the club premises, take place in the practice rooms provided by the city of Aachen and schools as well as in gymnasiums and swimming pools.

Anyone

The Everyman's Department emerged from the athletics department in the 1970s to offer something for the time after the active phase of competition. As part of the keep-fit movement of the German Sports Association, special sports hours have been set up for women and men, which are aimed at interested members over the age of 40, in particular at retirees and retirees, and among other things have a sociable character. Gymnastics, back training, Nordic walking and light jogging are offered all year round in the area of the club facilities.

In addition, once a month, both members and non-members can take the exams to acquire the German sports badge on the Am Chorusberg facility.

athletics

The athletics department has become the club's figurehead and has produced a considerable number of top athletes over the course of the club's history. The club has several German champions, German youth champions and, to date, a world champion with André Collet, as well as many individual and team winners at renowned sports festivals and running competitions. Some well-known Olympic participants such as Anke Feller and Ingrid Thyssen spent their first years in the ATG and there they laid the basis for their later success. Most of the top athletes remained, however, which enabled the ATG to celebrate regional and national successes, especially in the senior classes of the various athletic competitions. However, great importance is still attached to the youth work, which is reflected again and again in the various regional and national sports festivals and championships in the results lists of the respective age groups.

At the same time, the athletics department of the club has gained a high level of recognition for hosting several running competitions. For example, since 1963 it has hosted the ATG winter run, which takes place annually on the third Advent, over 18.2 km from the former youth home in the Vichtbachtal to the Chorusberg. The route was only extended to the half marathon distance on a trial basis in 1993 and 1994 , but the organizers returned to the traditional route in 1995. The event is advertised nationwide and only 2500 runners are allowed to take part due to official requirements. Well-known athletes such as Wolf-Dieter Poschmann , Günter Mielke , Detlef Uhlemann , Michael Spöttel , Herbert Steffny , Karl Fleschen and Martin Grüning for the men and Birgit Lennartz-Lohrengel and Petra Maak for the women have so far won the race.

In addition, since 2006, the ATG has been organizing the “ Nobis Printen- Cross” on its own site and across neighboring meadows since 2006 , which is also classified as a district championship and counts as the fourth run of the “Schoolchildren's Forest Run Cup” for the school classes. In addition, an autumn forest run, optionally over 10.6 or 7.1 km, was launched as a permanent event that is open to everyone and runs from the clubhouse over the heights of the Aachen forest.

In addition to the traditional annual sports festivals, jumper and sprinter days as well as throwing days, the club has taken over the organization of the internationally open three-way running series in Aachen's Waldstadion from DLC Aachen since 2012 . This is offered every spring over 1500, 5000 and 10,000 meters in the Aachen Waldstadion and is also rated as a district championship. Finally, in 2015 the athletics department introduced the "running challenge", which is aimed in particular at eventing runners. The challenge is a separate evaluation, in which the results of the Nobis Printen-Cross, the track series as well as the autumn and winter runs are included with different weighting and according to a fixed point system.

In order to be able to be more effective in the team rankings, the athletics department of the ATG merged with the clubs LC Herzogenrath and DJK Rasensport Aachen-Brand to form the “Startgemeinschaft auxilia Aachen” (StG auxilia Aachen). This connection was dissolved in 2013 and 2014 and resumed from 2015 in the new composition of ATG, Alemannia Aachen -athletics department and TV Roetgen.

do gymnastics

The gymnastics department is the origin of the club and has an eventful history behind it. The club's first major gymnast was Carl Schuhmann , who later won four gold medals at the 1896 Olympic Games . Other gymnasts from the ATG were regularly represented at the German Gymnastics Festival, which takes place every five years, where Gerd Zepf won the “popular eight-fight” in 1957 in Munich. A year earlier, the ATG team of 16 won the group competition at the Rheinisches Landesturnfest in Bergisch Gladbach .

Nowadays, gymnastics no longer plays the main role in the club, although there are still numerous training offers for women, men, married couples, girls and boys as well as parent-child gymnastics. In addition, the gymnastics department expanded its range of sports to include modern gymnastics, functional gymnastics, aerobics and gentle gymnastics. In addition, she took over the former fistball division and set up a cycling group .

volleyball

The volleyball department, founded in 1975, now consists of only two teams: a mixed team that takes part in the league and a senior mixed team that practices the sport as a pure hobby. The league team has been playing in the third season of six of the Aachen-Düren-Heinsberg volleyball circuit for several years. In earlier times the ATG volleyball players were more successful when, for example, in 1982 the first men's team rose to the top division and the first women's team rose to the association league at the same time. The ATG cannot keep up with the other volleyball clubs in Aachen, because they are more specialized, have a cheaper infrastructure and better sponsorship.

Active and former top performers (selection)

Christiane Brinkmann (* 1962), track and field athlete, began her career in the ATG, later setting the world record with the relay in the 400-meter run
André Collet (* 1971), German champion 2013 and 2016 and age group world champion in the 100 km run in 2012 and 2016
Matthias Flohr (* 1982), handball player, began his career in the ATG, later a Bundesliga player
Anke Feller (* 1971), athlete, started her career in the ATG, later world champion in 1997 and European champion in 1998 with the relay in the 400-meter run
Wolfgang Glöde (* 1942), long-distance runner, in 1967 sixth place at the German Athletics Championships in Stuttgart over 10,000 m (30: 18.6 min), 1970 winner of the first ATG winter run (56:25 min). 1971 third place in the Paderborn Easter run over 25 km (1:18:12 h), third place in the German University Championships in Berlin over 5,000 m (13: 56.2 min PB), fourth place in the athletics championships in Stuttgart over 10,000 m (30: 25.2 min) and second place in the marathon in Bensberg - Refrath (2: 19: 59.8 h PB). In 1972, he narrowly failed because he was nominated for the 10,000-meter run for the Olympics in Munich, and later became a running coach with the ATG
Mussa Hudrog (* 1984), track and field athlete and West German champion with the team in the half marathon as well as North Rhine champion in the 10 km road run, multiple winner of the ATG winter run, Lebanese champion in cross country and participant in the 2017 cross country championships .
Rolf von der Laage (1932–2006), track and field athlete and sports official
Philipp Nawrocki (* 1977), athlete and German champion with the team in the marathon 2010 and 2011 as well as third in the individual evaluation 2010, multiple winner of the ATG winter run
Stefan Schnorr (* 1985), athlete and German champion with the team in the 2010 and 2011 marathon
Carl Schuhmann (1869–1946), gymnast, began his athletic career in the ATG, later four-time Olympic champion in Athens in 1896
Ingrid Thyssen (* 1956), javelin thrower, began her career in the ATG, later eight times German champion and Olympic sixth in Seoul
Gerd Zepf (1939–2016), gymnast and track and field athlete, German champion 1957 in the "mixed six-way fight"