Kim Bui has been one of the best gymnasts in Germany for almost two decades. In the national team, she matures into active spokeswoman, is almost something like the mother of her teammates, some of whom are much younger. How she is really doing, her eating disorder, she cleverly hides for years.
Her book, which also addresses an eating disorder that has lasted for years, will be published on March 4th, one day later ARD broadcasts a documentary entitled “Hungern for Gold” (5 p.m.). But Kim Bui didn’t want to wait that long with her courageous confession. “It took about six or seven years for my whole bulimia disease until I was completely over it and could say it was over,” said the 34-year-old in an interview with SWR Sport.
The Stuttgart native has appeared strong and in control for almost two decades during her long career. And yet: the daughter of a Vietnamese and a Laotian, who was born in Tübingen, felt pressured by the trainers at the beginning of her career to lose weight: “At some point there was a moment when I said to myself: I can only do this by… vomit.”
With the help of a new trainer, she made her way into therapy, but Bui was only able to openly deal with it years after her recovery: “I was plagued by too much shame, disgust and feelings of guilt.” The technical biologist was helped to cope with the illness by her commitment as spokeswoman for the German Gymnastics Association (DTB).
And the 2011 European Championship third on the uneven bars was also a driving force behind the initiative of the German national team, which competed in full body suits for the first time at the 2021 European Championships in Basel – as an alternative to the traditional tight dress. It was and is important to Bui that the athletes have the choice: “We didn’t want to dictate anything, it was always about self-determination.”
Her current courageous step into the public was self-chosen. But anyone who expects a general reckoning with artistic gymnastics in her book “45 seconds” – that’s how long her very last exercise on the uneven bars lasted – will be disappointed: “I describe above all what makes gymnastics fascinating for me. But I also name grievances in it this sport.”
