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Berlin (dpa) - The Chemnitz gymnastics trainer Gabriele Frehse admitted possible verbal missteps against athletes in an open letter to the sports committee of the German Bundestag, but again denied the unauthorized administration of drugs.
It was never her intention to communicate with the gymnasts she trained in a way that they could have perceived as “psychological abuse”, according to the letter published by the online portal “gymmedia.de”.
"If some of the gymnasts nevertheless perceived it that way, I am sincerely sorry and I apologize to the relevant people," wrote the trainer.
At the same time, she assured that she had never administered drugs without permission.
"With regard to the allegation of the administration of pain medication, I would like to emphasize that such a drug never took place without the consent of the doctors or parents," wrote Frehse.
The chairman of the sports committee, Dagmar Freitag (SPD), confirmed on Monday in response to a dpa request that the letter had been received by her office last Thursday and that the other members of the committee had then been informed.
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The sports committee will deal with the topic on Wednesday under the agenda item "Consequences for training structures from the incidents at OSP Saxony / Chemnitz Federal Base".
After an investigation by a Frankfurt law firm, the Deutsche Turner-Bund (DTB) had found “serious breaches of duty” by Frehse.
Ex-world champion Pauline Schäfer and other gymnasts had accused Frehse of harassing her in training, administering medication without a doctor's prescription and not allowing any objection.
Frehse has denied the allegations several times.
In her letter, the gymnastics trainer informed the members of the sports committee that the most recent allegations were "by no means completely new allegations".
There had already been investigations into this in 2018, as a result of which she was warned by the Olympic base in Saxony as her employer.
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Open letter from Gabriele Frehse