Ellen Berger Watches With Eagle Eyes

Ellen Berger Watches With Eagle Eyes

Neue Zeit, 1 August 1978

Exactly 24 hours before the competition for coveted scores and medals, the judges have fully assembled in the competition area, and the substitute gymnasts from the individual countries show their compulsory work at the traditional podium event. Then the President of the Technical Committee of the International Gymnastics Federation explains the value of the exercises and wrestles with the judges about the all-important standards.

This process occurs before every international gymnastics championship. Since the Olympic Games in Montreal, a woman from the GDR has had the first word on such occasions, then watches with hawkish eyes that everything is right and that the best gymnast is awarded the victory. Her name is Ellen Berger, a member of the Technical Committee since 1968, raised to the rank of Vice President four years later, and finally elected President of this committee two years ago with an overwhelming majority. She has taken a great responsibility on her shoulders.

After all, the most important organ of the International Gymnastics Federation, with its decisions on the furthering the path of women’s gymnastics in the world, guides its development in the right direction and shields this aesthetic type of sport against harmful influences and excesses.

The schedule of the woman who lives in Strausberg is packed to the last line and is calculated down to the minute. Ten days before the start of the competition, the members of the Technical Committee are already on the scene, from the early hours of the morning until late at night, taking care of many little things are always hidden from the audience. When she gets home, the preparation of work plans or the evaluation of the competition protocols are on the agenda. However, changes to the rules must also be taken into account. At present it’s about the wording of the scoring rules. “We want to give women’s gymnastics even more progressive traits, steer it in a direction in which acrobatic and gymnastic elements complement each other in an ideal way,” Ellen Berger explains to me.

By no means is she a member of the presidium of the German Gymnastics Association of the GDR. She is not absent from any major event in her home country and meets regularly for forums and lectures with students in her home. In domestic competition, she usually makes herself indispensable as the main judge or competition director. With her vitality, calmness and prudence, which are generally valued, she masters everything. In doing so, she knows herself to be one with her understanding spouse.

In her mail box there were recently many letters sent from South America. They thanked her for the care and gentleness with which she had led a judges’ and coaches’ course in Mexico City months ago, thus promoting the sport in countries where gymnasts are not yet among the top international class.

She speaks enthusiastically about the work of Soviet friends of gymnastics in preparation for the next Olympic Games. “You are doing excellent there under the careful direction of the former Olympic champion Larisa Latynina,” reported Berger, who is a technical delegate of the “Olympia 80” organizing committee and knows things from her own experience. “The youth of the world can already look forward to this event in Moscow.”

Gymnastics friends from the GDR know Ellen Berger from another point of view. Her name is closely linked to the rise of the GDR gymnasts to the top of the world. The great successes of the 1960s and the early 1970s bear Berger’s handwriting to a considerable extent. Until 1951 she was active herself and repeatedly appeared in the Saxony team. Then she was appointed Association coach two years later. She coached the GDR team at their world championships debut in Moscow, and in 1961 she was able to celebrate the first gold in GDR gymnastics with the European vault title for her protégé Ute Starke. That was still a rarity back then. That was soon to change. Under Berger’s direction, Erika Zuchold and Karin Buttner-Janz came out on top at the world championships and Olympic Games. It was only two years ago that Ellen Berger placed the fate of GDR women’s gymnastics in the hands of Hannelore Sauer.

She laughingly admits that her heart has always stuck with the GDR gymnasts. She adds, however, seriously: “I still believe I can say with a clear conscience that I have always made my way towards recognizing the objectively offered services.” What the ideal gymnast of the present day has to be able to do, I need to ask her. The answer: “Gymnastics should be difficult, but elegance and harmony should not be forgotten.” She is also ready to give a few names. Internationally, the type embodied by Nelli Kim of the USSR and Romanian Nadia Comaneci. In the GDR, according to Berger, Steffi Kraker and Silvia Hindorff currently meet these criteria.