Schuster warns against funding cuts for sports institutes

Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) has warned against a reduction in federal funding for two important institutions in German sports. A funding cut at the Institute for Applied Training Sciences (IAT) in Leipzig and the Institute for Research and Development of Sports Equipment in Berlin (FES) would mean "a painful and possibly irretrievable loss in specialists and expertise in German parade sports such as canoeing, ski jumping or biathlon" just a year before the Olympics, he told the German Press Agency in Dresden on Tuesday.

"I am pleased that the federal government has now taken up our arguments and the first signals are coming from the Federal Ministry of the Interior to want to continue to adequately fund IAT and FES," the minister stressed. He added that this made him confident that a cut in funding would be reversed in the upcoming federal budget discussions. However, nothing is yet "in the bag."

Schuster now wants to address the issue at the conference of sports ministers at the end of next week in Herzogenaurach. "Only with the training science expertise of the IAT and our athletes training hard can we continue to bring medals to Germany in the future."