Maxi Gnauck: Admiration for exceptional athlete Simone Biles

Fears accelerate early career end

Maxi Gnauck revealed that she also had to wrestle with mental problems at the end of her career. "I struggled with fear more in the last six months than before. Fear of the elements, of difficult exercises," she reported. In addition to back problems, this fear led to her ending her career earlier than planned. Instead of the 1985 World Championships, she competed in her last competition at the previous European Championships, where she won the uneven bars title, among others.

She would have had to take some time off afterwards and then her preparation for the World Championships would have been too short, said Gnauck, who has worked as a coach in Switzerland for many years. In addition, her relationship with her coach had suffered because she had not trained properly due to her anxiety. "I wouldn't have known how I would have coped with the preparation in such a short time, even with my anxiety," said the last German Olympic gymnastics champion to date.

At that time, people didn't dare to take time out so that they could recover mentally and physically and then perhaps continue gymnastics again with new energy and willpower, said Gnauck. That's why she thinks the development in gymnastics is good, "because you can see that even if you take two years off like Simone Biles, you can still find your way back to the top of the world".