Eberhard Gienger

During his gymnastics career from 1971 to 1981, Gienger won 36 German championship titles; one gold and three silver medals in world championships; three gold, two silver and two bronze medals in European championships, and one Olympic bronze medal.

Gienger was an outstanding high bar artist: He won the European Championships in 1973, 1975 and 1981; he won gold in the 1974 World Championships, and won the bronze medal in the 1976 Olympic Games. For these feats he was elected German Sportsman of the Year in 1974 and 1978. The Gienger salto on the high bar and on the uneven bars is named after him.

Gienger was a member of the German National Olympic Committee from 1986 to 2006, and since 2006 has been the Vice President of the Deutscher Olympischer Sportbund, the successor organization to the German NOC.

Gienger entered politics in 2001 and became a member of the Christian Democratic Union. He has been a member of the German Parliament since the 2002 elections, representing the Neckar-Zaber electoral district of the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg. In parliament, he has since been serving on the Committee on Sports and the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment. In February 2020, Gienger announced he would not seek reelection in the 2021 German federal election.^[2]