Investing in high performance sports
Germany’s athletes have received increasing funding and support since the Olympic Games Munich 1972, support that has translated into greater success at the highest level.
A total of EUR 22 million was made available to the country’s top athletes in 2019 alone, money that was allocated by the Stiftung Deutsche Sporthilfe (German Sports Aid Foundation). Since the foundation’s creation in 1967, 261 of the 53,000 athletes it has supported in that time have gone on to win Olympic gold medals. With its backing, German athletes spend an average of 31.8 hours a week on training and competing and 27 hours on work and education.
Those 261 Olympic gold medallists include the fencer Arnd Schmitt, who won the individual and team épée titles at Barcelona 1992 and Seoul 1988. In 1985, he became the first German athlete to receive assistance through the “Optimalförderung”, a support programme introduced by Sporthilfe for world-class sportswomen and men. The other 260 Olympic champions include the likes of Franz Keller (an individual Nordic combined winner at Grenoble 1968), Magdalena Neuner (a two-time biathlon gold medallist at Vancouver 2010) and Birgit Fischer, the winner of eight kayak Olympic gold medals. Reigning women’s long jump world champion Malaika Mihambo and the 2017 men**’**s javelin world champion Johannes Vetter are just two of the 4,000 athletes currently receiving support from the foundation.
Sporthilfe’s funding comes from event revenues, sponsorship, donations, a lottery programme, grants and other sources such as the German Olympic Sports Confederation. In 2018, the German government began channelling its support for high-performance athletes through the foundation. This state support, which equates to around EUR 3.5 million, now accounts for around 14 per cent of Sporthilfe’s overall budget.
The government of former West Germany steadily increased its investment in sports associations and the country’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) in the lead-up to the Olympic Games. By 1972, that investment totalled DM 23.5 million (USD 13.6 million), which was then allocated by the sport federations and NOC.
Set up in 1967, Stiftung Deutsche Sporthilfe started out as a private fund supporting talented young athletes and promoting diversity across all Olympic sports. Athletes receiving funding from the foundation must sign a statement confirming that they will uphold fair play, respect the rules and observe anti-doping regulations. It is estimated that around 90 per cent of German success in the international sporting arena has been achieved by athletes who have had assistance from the Stiftung Deutsche Sporthilfe.