With ambition to lightness

Monika Scheibe - Chemnitzer Eislauf-Club e.V.

For more than 50 years, she left her mark on figure skating in Chemnitz, coaching the top skaters of the Chemnitz Ice Skating Club in pairs and singles. Ten medals at the Olympics and other international competitions were won by Monika Scheibe's protégés, who has now ended her active coaching career. In the Maker of the Week interview, the 73-year-old from Chemnitz looks back on this time.

Mrs Scheibe, what makes a good coach?

Monika Scheibe: You have to ask the athletes.

And if I ask you?

You have to be a reliable contact person for the athletes. As a coach, you have a responsibility for the athletes. It has always been important to me to take their problems seriously. It's also important to continue to develop as a coach, to educate yourself and to scrutinise your own actions: Is this the right thing to do? Is it helping the athlete now?

So you are also a counsellor?

Yes, a counsellor. Travelling counsellor. You spend a lot of time together at competitions and training courses. And talk about things that lie outside of sport. Everyone has to find the solution for themselves, but I can provide food for thought. After all, they are human beings and not puppets on the ice.

As a coach, you have to be strict sometimes, don't you?

Yes, that's part of it. Motivation is very important, but you can't always just praise, praise, praise. As a coach, you have to be credible and be able to say: That wasn't good. Realising the mistake and how to avoid it often helps the athlete more. And then you give them a hug and say: "Come on, again!" An athlete needs a kick up the backside every now and then to know what they want and do what they want and not let themselves drift.

You officially retired a few days ago. How do you feel about that?

Good. I'm leaving with a good feeling. If there's a need, I'm still available. But I no longer have to be in the training hall from Monday to Saturday and can plan my holidays without having to worry about competitions and courses. I had planned this for a long time, informed people early on and stopped taking on new athletes when I was 70, because that would have been unfair.

Why did you stop?

I asked myself, why do you only want to stop when you can no longer do it? I'm as fit as a fiddle, I look forward to hiking in the mountains and spending time with my family. I've had to tell her so many times: I'm sorry, I don't have time. When my family asks me now, I can say: I can, I'll be there.

What are you doing now?

First of all, a holiday. I'm very grateful to my club for their support, my fellow coaches, the Saxon Ice Skating Association and the city for their sympathy and support over the decades. And of course my family. They have experienced joy and suffered with me.

Was the club a second family for you?

It was the family. I was more at the ice rink than at home. In this respect, no success is an individual achievement.

How did you get into ice skating?

It was probably in second grade, when my sister and I met a girl who roller skated. We then watched her training with Jutta Müller. We asked if we could join in and she said: "But we do figure skating in winter. My sister and I probably didn't even know what it was and just said yes. Back then, we didn't have an indoor arena, just an ice rink and wooden benches as a dressing room. And grandma brought lunch over. There were winters when we would shovel the snow off the surface until the training session was over and the next discipline came onto the ice.

What do you find so fascinating about figure skating?

Gliding on the ice brings lightness, plus jumps, pirouettes, pair skating elements combined with music and dance. It's a great symbiosis. It's incredible that you can not only move in a straight line with two skates on your feet, but with the right jump height and angular speed, you can turn around your own axis several times in the air and land on one foot. There are few limits to your own creativity.

How has the sport changed?

The quality of the artistry has improved a lot. The level of difficulty has increased enormously. The age of quadruple jumps has dawned, not only for the men but also for the young ladies. Pirouettes and step sequences are receiving more and more attention in the rules. So I ask myself: where is this going to lead?

And what is your answer?

I can now imagine that the jump combination quadruple-four and more is possible. Seven or eight years ago, I would have said that wouldn't be possible. The future will show where the limits lie. Nevertheless, figure skating should continue to be so beautiful and so rich in facets.

Monika Scheibe became a trainer at the age of 18. She has coached at least 20 pairs during her career. She has also coached numerous individual skaters. She succeeded in leading Chemnitz couples to the top of the world (such as Mandy Wötzel and Ingo Steuer) and helping to shape them for many years - from juniors to adults. Your protégés have won a total of ten medals - from gold at the Junior World Championships to European and World Championship titles and bronze at the 1998 Olympic Games.

Which success do you remember most?

Every medal evokes great emotions in me. But the most surprising was certainly the silver medal won by Wötzel and Rauschenbach at the European Championships in Birmingham. That was before the reunification. They hadn't been competing internationally for very long and we had expected the Russian pairs to be much stronger. The fact that Mandy and Axel were able to deliver their performance there was sensational. Wötzel and Steuer's gold at the 1995 European Championships was also outstanding: the fact that they had worked their way to the top within a year.

There are obviously many components to success.

A lot of them. You need ambition, you have to be passionate about it. You have to organise your living environment in such a way that competitive sport is possible. Your parents have to support you. Mandy and Ingo really wanted to run together, it was the opportunity of a lifetime. I asked them how it was going to work, because they were like cats and dogs. But they proved me wrong and worked out their strengths together. Bringing that to the ice together was the hardest work.

Winning is one thing. Do you still remember any difficult situations?

There are falls that I couldn't prevent. One of them is the fall of Mandy Wötzel and Ingo Steuer at the 1998 Olympic Games. As a coach, you sometimes have a seventh sense and can tell whether everything is going "normally" or not. Nevertheless, you are not a clairvoyant. Accidents happen in places in the programme where you don't expect them. And these are not always the most difficult elements.

Are you still in contact with your former protégés?

Ingo Steuer takes over my job. The alumni get together every year on Boxing Day. It's nice to see what they've become. You've given the athletes something for life.

The ice fairy tale probably wouldn't exist without you. Will you stay involved?

I think so. I already have ideas for next year.

What do you want for Chemnitz as the Capital of Culture in 2025?

I include figure skating as culture and I hope that figure skating continues to receive the support of the city so that we can continue to practise this beautiful sport at such a high level. And I hope that the Capital of Culture will not only last until 2025, but beyond. Because it's not just the moment that counts.