Jonas* has stored his weapon, it is now somewhere in the hall, a sword with a thin blade. He doesn’t need you anymore, he won, Oh, what, he has triumphed. 0:4, he was, actually, a losing battle, the duel was only up to the fifth victory point. “But then,” says Jonas, the drawn face of the effort, “I still have 5:4 won.”
On his forehead of sweat shines, the body is in a white Fechtanzug. Jonas, twelve years old, looks full of expectation. Before that, his coach is right, what is coming now. Marek Bajan smiles, then he says: “Congratulations, well done.” Bayan is wearing a red T-Shirt, the “German championship of 2018” is printed, and the glasses, he has pushed into the light hair.
Jonas goes back to the field to the other 13 young people, the training, the metallic Clanking of Blades, the clash, the Helene-Lange-hall pulls in Steglitz. Training of the fencing clubs of Berlin-West.
“power sports you can forget”
Bayan bends but to venture to the Matt, on which he has his Laptop placed, you tap on the buttons, so that the whole misery of his sporty, everyday appear. Images of a construction site will appear, with a cracked ground, a bucket of paint, bare walls, pipes. There are pictures from SOHOs-fencing hall in Steglitz. Actually, the fencing Club Berlin-southwest is here at home. Actually.
Since the autumn of 2015. At the time the refugees moved in, members of the Association helped in their care. But you three and a half years later, the refugees are long gone, is still not in the hall, so that you don’t expect. “Performance sport”, moans Marek Bajan, the Trainer, “you can forget it.” Lutz Wilde, the Vice-President of the club, explained: “The Situation is miserable.”
The Situation looks so, that there is in this case only victims. The club that still stands in front of a construction site, while other clubs can already train in your renovated halls, and the district office, the SOHOs hall renovated and of various construction damage was surprised.
“The Work”, says Maren Schellenberg, district councillor in the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, “are expected to be after the summer holidays, 2019.” A couple of months. “We will have to hold on, we have been kept so long,” says Martin Kromm, the Chairman of the Association.
Club loses members
But the problems, has to be in the club by the waiting time, he can be accounted for now. “Around 40 members we have lost since the autumn of 2015, at least half of it is gone because of a bad training situation.” Children and young people, which changed either the Association or to have ceased to be. And two years is a time-consuming drive for kids, parents, coaches and young people to the replacement training halls in Berlin and Kleinmachnow. Bayan calculates time, he comes to a monthly of 600 kilometers, which he laid at the time.
For a year after all the Training runs in the Helene-Lange-hall, not far from the SOHOs-hall. But the hall has no tracks, the ground is slippery, the detectors for the battles to have every Time – and be dismantled. The Monday training of the Association is deleted, and Thursdays, the players are there, according to them, the fencers will be allowed in.
“Just for the foil fencers, we have little training times. The sword, it looks better,“ says Kromm. After all, is still the athletes of the fencing clubs of Berlin-southwest with mixing at the German Championships in the front. But the results could be even better.
The district office refers to a variety of problems in the hall. The building fabric was in a “poor state of repair and that the originally planned construction period for the selective elimination of the damage caused by refugee assignment had to be replaced by a complex refurbishment of the sports and fencing hall”.
Also in the replacement hall defects
Static problems, the pollutant-loaded building materials in the floor area, mold infestation, all of this “led to not planned actions”. For example, was “only in the final phase of construction evident” that the sports ground had to be completely canceled. And because of the “pollutant-containing insulation materials in the floor” had to be a pollutant report is to be created. New tender procedure were to become necessary. And the work of the district. In the Helene-Lange-hall toilets are broken since a long time. The Alternatives are in front of the hall door, in blue-and-white, color: port-a-potties.
*the Name has been changed
More about
According to refugee accommodation the Steglitz district of fencers get a solid replacement during hall renovation
Boris Buchholz
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