Andrea Zimmerer

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Andrea Zimmerer (1985)

Andrea Zimmerer , née Gutknecht (born June 4, 1965 in Preetz ) is a German table tennis player . In the 1980s she played in the national team, and because of her disability she is one of the world's best players in wheelchair table tennis.

Career

youth

As a nine-year-old Gutknecht began playing table tennis at the Preetzer TSV. In 1978 she moved to TSV Kronshagen . In the school competitions she won the title of German Champion three times : 1978 in doubles with Susanne Wenzel and 1979 in singles and doubles with Gaby Sippel. In 1979 she took part in the European Schools Championship. In 1982 she took second place in the ranking tournament pupils TOP-12 of the DTTB.

As a teenager she won the German championship in doubles with Susanne Wenzel in 1980 and in singles and mixed (with Guido Hehmann) in 1982, and came second in the youth TOP 12. In the same year she was nominated for the European Youth Championship.

Adult area

Gutknecht attracted attention at the German adult championships when she and Kirsten Rathje won doubles against Agnes Simon / Monika Stork . With Kronshagen she won the German team championship in 1983. That year she was nominated for the world championship . Here she beat the Yugoslav Branka Batinić in the individual competition , but was eliminated by Barbara Lippens (Belgium). In doubles, she reached the round of 16 together with Monica Grefberg from Finland. With the German team she came in 10th. In 1983 she was ranked 4th in the national German ranking.

In the 1984/85 season she joined the GW Kiel association. After an interlude in 1985/86 with the Reinickendorfer Füchsen , she returned to Kiel. She played in the Bundesliga with both clubs .

End of career as a "pedestrian"

Gutknecht suffered from a malignant tumor which in 1991 forced her to amputate her left leg. This meant the end of her “pedestrian” career. She stopped playing table tennis.

In 1993 she married Frank Zimmerer. As a result, she was active in several disabled sports.

New start with wheelchair table tennis

In 1993 Gutknecht started playing table tennis again - now under the name Andrea Zimmerer. In competitions, she competed in a wheelchair in class 5 for the disabled. First she joined the RSG Raisdorf. In 1993 she won the state championship of Schleswig-Holstein in performance class A in front of all male participants. After only six months of table tennis in a wheelchair, Andrea said goodbye to this sport and devoted herself to other hobbies, such as cycling. In 2005 she rediscovered the sport of table tennis, first playing in the 2nd wheelchair Bundesliga at RSC Husum and from 2006 then at BSG Bielefeld (with Monika Sikora-Weinmann) in the 1st wheelchair Bundesliga and the FT Preetz in the association league of the " Pedestrian".

Her experience in "pedestrian" table tennis benefited her in sports for the disabled and helped her to achieve several national and international successes. She won gold with the team and silver in the individual at the 2005 European Championships. Two years later she became European champion both individually and with the team. In 2006 she was runner-up with the German team. At the Paralympics in Beijing in 2008 she won silver with the team and bronze in the individual (WK 4).

For this she received the silver laurel leaf from Federal President Horst Köhler . In 2009 she was awarded the Schleswig-Holstein sports badge.

In the world rankings she is fourth behind three Chinese women.

job

After completing her business studies degree, Andrea Gutknecht worked for 11 years at the University of Kiel. A few years after her leg amputation, her third cancer forced her to take early retirement.

Results from the ITTF database

Association event year place country singles Double Mixed team
FRG  World Championship  1983  Tokyo  JPN   last 64  last 16  Agony  10 

Awards

Web links

Literature and Sources

  • Wulf Danker: With willpower and a sense of reality , DTS magazine , 1991/8, page 49
  • Wulf Danker: She has new goals , DTS magazine , 1993/9, page 37
  • Wulf Danker: A New Life , DTS magazine , 1998/11, page 37
  • Manfred Schäfer: A game for life. 75 years of DTTB. (1925-2000) . Published by the German Table Tennis Association. DTTB, Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-00-005890-7 , pages 163-174, 224.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DTS magazine , 1982/13, page 36
  2. ↑ DTS magazine , 1981/6, page 6
  3. ↑ table tennis in rheinland - official magazine of the Tischtennisverband Rheinland eV , May 2005, page 10
  4. ↑ DTS magazine , 1993/7, page 9
  5. ↑ German.China.ORG.CN: November 21, 2008, athlete honor: [...] Federal President Koehler has awarded the medal winners of the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games 2008 with the silver laurel leaf.
  6. ↑ State sport honors awarded: Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior honor top athletes and voluntary work in the association ( Memento from July 1, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) from March 10, 2009, accessed on May 18, 2013
  7. ↑ DTS magazine , 1991/8, page 45
  8. ↑ ITTF statistics ( memento from February 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on February 1, 2017)
personal data
SURNAME Carpenter, Andrea
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gutknecht, Andrea
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German table tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Preetz