The nice thing about sport is that sometimes you can even bring light into the matter from a windowless basement room.
When Max Hartung became the first president of the newly founded Athleten Deutschland eV club in Cologne in autumn 2017 in the basement of the Rhineland Olympic base, things got a little brighter in German sport.
He preferred to continue to grope in the dark. In any case, the leadership of the German Olympic Sports Confederation opposed this act of self-defense by the athletes, which should not be forgotten because at the DOSB they are also against good, even indispensable ideas of the athletes' representatives - such as the establishment of a center for safe sport around the Appropriate counteraction to problems of abuse - make wind.
The example of the German athletes who fight back, "shaken by the endless scandals of corrupt officials", as the FAZ wrote in 2017, is considered exemplary internationally.
Hartung and Vice President Manuela Schmermund are now stepping down as well, and the new members will be elected this Saturday at the digital general meeting.
And despite all the skills of the founding generation, there is still so much to do.