Sylvio Kroll

Sylvio Kroll was a member of the silver medal-winning East German men’s gymnastics team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Individually, he finished tenth in the all-around event, won another silver in the horse vault, and reached the apparatus finals on the parallel bars (seventh) and pommelled horse (eighth). At Barcelona four years later, now representing re-unified Germany, he placed an unfortunate fourth with the team, and finished sixth in the horse vault. In the individual all-around he was 26th.

Fourth in the all-round competition at the 1985 Oslo European Championships, Kroll also won gold on the horse vault and silver on the pommelled horse and parallel bars. In Oslo, he also created the “Kroll jump”, a flip, forward somersault, crouched, with a one-and-a-half screw, which was introduced into the “Code de Pointage” as a conventional move. In the same year he won his first world title on the parallel bars in Montréal, was world champion runner-up on the horizontal bar, a team bronze medal winner, and the first German gymnast to take bronze in the all-around competition. In 1987 he added two more European silver medals and won the world title on the horse vault, and also collected a team bronze medal. In 1989, he added two more silver medals with the team and horse vault. In 1991, he won another team bronze at the Worlds.

Kroll later became a sports administrator and gymnastics manager. From 1997-2007 he was tournament director of the Cottbus World Cup “Tournament of Masters”. From 2007-08 he led the Regional Olympic Center at Stuttgart. From 2009 he worked at the Brandenburg Olympic Training Center in Frankfurt on Oder as co-ordinator of training science and federal training centers.