Munich (dpa/lby) - At the German Figure Skating Union, a power struggle for leadership in the association is looming at the general meeting on September 10 in Munich. Stefan Steinmetz initially applied for the presidency and announced that he only wanted to lead the DEU together with Andreas Wagner and ex-sports director Udo Dönsdorf as vice presidents.
This announcement to only be elected as a trio is "the impetus" for a short-term counter-candidate of the former figure skaters Benjamin Blum, Tobias Bayer and Larissa Vetter, as it said in their announcement on Wednesday. The doctor and management consultant from Ludwigshafen wants to run for the presidency. She could become the first woman to head DEU.
The young applicants, none of whom is older than 40, want to reform the association, which has not been particularly successful internationally for years. "How do we achieve that? By breaking up old structures, away from individual status thinking and a policy behind closed doors towards transparent communication," Vetter is quoted as saying in the statement.
Dieter Hillebrand has been President of DEU since July 2006. However, the lawyer has hardly ever appeared in public over the many years. His last vice presidents were Florian Gerlach and Reinhard Ketterer. The Berliner Ketterer, who is responsible for competitive sports, supports the candidacy of the three young applicants: "I'm looking forward to the young guns. It can only get better."
