Anett Pötzsch-Rauschenbach

Anett Pötzsch-Rauschenbach
nation	German Democratic Republic
birthday	September 3, 1960
place of birth	Karl Marx City
Career
Trainer	Jutta Müller
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 2 × 2 × 0 × EM medals 4 × 1 × 1 ×
winter Olympics gold Lake Placid 1980 Ladies  World figure skating championships silver Tokyo 1977 Ladies gold Ottawa 1978 Ladies silver Vienna 1979 Ladies gold Dortmund 1980 Ladies  European figure skating championships bronze Copenhagen 1975 Ladies silver Geneva 1976 Ladies gold Helsinki 1977 Ladies gold Strasbourg 1978 Ladies gold Zagreb 1979 Ladies gold Gothenburg 1980 Ladies

Anett Pötzsch-Rauschenbach (born September 3, 1960 in Karl-Marx-Stadt as Anett Pötzsch ) is a former German figure skater who started in a single run . She is the Olympic champion of 1980 and the world champion of 1978 and 1980 .

Career as a figure skater

Anett Pötzsch was registered for figure skating with SC Karl-Marx-Stadt at the age of five. In 1971 she joined the training group of the former world figure skating champion Gabriele Seyfert , who was at the beginning of her coaching career. A year earlier, Pötzsch had already achieved second place in the Children's and Youth Spartakiad and was able to repeat this success in 1972. In 1973 she switched to the GDR master trainer Jutta Müller , Gabriele Seyfert's mother. Under Müller, she was third in the GDR women's championships that same year, and vice-champion in 1974 and 1975. In 1973 she took part in the world figure skating championship for the first time and finished 14th at the age of 13. She won her first international medal with bronze at the European Championships in Copenhagen in 1975 .

In 1976 Pötzsch achieved the final breakthrough to become the world's best. First, she had won the title at the GDR championships for the first time, which was followed by four more by 1980. At the European Championships in Geneva she won the silver medal, at the World Championships in Gothenburg and at the Olympic Games in Innsbruck she just missed the medal ranks with fourth place. She won her first European title a year later in Helsinki and was able to defend this title three times until 1980, always ahead of Dagmar Lurz from Germany. At the world championships, she fought against the American Linda Fratianne . At the World Championships in Tokyo in 1977 and 1979 in Vienna she was defeated and became vice world champion, while she was able to defeat them at the World Championships in Ottawa in 1978 and in Dortmund in 1980 and became world champion . Pötzsch was the third world champion from the GDR after Gaby Seyfert and Christine Errath . She crowned her career in 1980 by winning the gold medal at the Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid , ahead of Linda Fratianne. It was the first Olympic title for a German figure skater. For her Olympic victory she was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in silver.

After the resignation

Anett Pötzsch 2006

At the height of her career, Pötzsch retired from figure skating after winning the Olympic gold medal in the spring of 1980. She gave knee problems as reasons, and there were also indications that Katarina Witt would be a serious competitor. Pötzsch took up a degree as a sports teacher at the Leipzig Sports University DHfK and, after successfully completing her degree, worked at DHfK as a research assistant. Among other things, she was responsible for training the figure skating coach. She also worked as a figure skating judge and participated as such at the European ice skating championships in 1988 and 1989. After the DHfK was dissolved as a result of German reunification in 1990, Pötzsch completed an apprenticeship as a banker. Because of her participation in the film Carmen on Ice , in which Katarina Witt also played, she was classified as a professional athlete by the German Ice Skating Association until 1993, which initially prevented her from continuing to work as a judge. In 1999 Pötzsch became the regional trainer of the Saxon Ice Skating Association, and in 2004 she became a "Technical Specialist" for a new rating system at the International Skating Union and in 2006 supervised the judges' assessment at the Winter Olympics in Turin. In 2009 she switched to the Dresden Ice Skating Club as a trainer. In summer 2017 she moved to the Olympic base in Mannheim.

family

While studying in Leipzig, Anett Pötzsch married Katarina Witt's brother, Axel Witt. In 1984 the daughter Claudia was born, who later also became a figure skater and in 2001 together with Robin Szolkowy became German champion in pair skating . In 1991 the marriage was divorced and in 1994 Pötzsch married the former figure skater Axel Rauschenbach . In 1994 their daughter Cindy was born.

Results

Competition / year	1973	1974	1975	1976	1977	1978	1979	1980
winter Olympics				4th				1.
World championships	14th	11.	8th.	4th	2.	1.	2.	1.
European championships	8th.	7th	3.	2.	1.	1.	1.	1.
GDR championships	3.	2.	2.	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.

swell

• Munzinger Archive, International Sports Archive 15/04
• Sächsische Tageszeitung, edition of February 3, 2009, article "Anett Pötzsch with dreams in Dresden"

literature

• Klaus Gallinat:  Pötzsch, Anett . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neues Deutschland , April 22, 1980, p. 2

Web links

Commons : Anett Pötzsch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Anett Pötzsch-Rauschenbach in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )