One day in September Alexander König, at that time still the national coach of the pair skating division in the German Ice Skating Union (DEU), went to Munich to talk to DEU President Dieter Hillebrand “about the situation of pair skating” at the headquarters of the association .
On that occasion, thought König, he would finally get to know the president of his federation, who was practically invisible to the athletes of this association.
And so it happened, albeit very differently than König had suspected.
The 55-year-old Berliner, who led Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot to win the gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in February 2018 and was promoted to national coach a year later after much back and forth and internal association concerns, was promoted to the Munich encounter fired of the rather eerie kind of bang on case.
Hillebrand, a cool Bavarian lawyer, is said to have told the soul-man König quite suddenly, according to his account, that there was no longer any need for a national coach in this discipline, since the currently best German couple Hase / Seegert are training more and more in Russia with their new coach Dimitri Sawin and the second best combination Hocke / Kunkel is in good hands with the German ice skating coach Rico Rex.
From the national master class only the native Belgian Ruben Blommaert is left, who is preparing for the beginning of a career together with his partner Alisa Efimova, who is not yet eligible to start, until April 2022 from her previous Russian association.
“Under the circumstances,” König remembers the one-sided conversation, “a national coach's salary is not justified.”
König caught by surprise in Munich
What particularly annoyed König as an artist in retrospect was his own reaction to the personal horror news. “Unfortunately, I reacted very emotionally,” says the retired national coach, “because I immediately decided that I couldn't work like this if there was no trust. That is why I immediately agreed to sign the termination agreement, which came into force one month later, without realizing the consequences for me Advantage for the DEU and the greatest disadvantage for me ”.
Instead of having the labor law situation checked by a lawyer he trusted and, if necessary, claiming a worthwhile severance payment, König had allowed himself to be taken by surprise in Munich without having made it sufficiently clear what the primary task of a national coach was in his eyes.
Also the professional support of the two top couples, but also the substantive strengthening of the German art skating parade discipline, the promotion of the youngsters as well as the attractive design of the DEU couple skating center Berlin.