Axel Lesser

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Axel Lesser at the XX. GDR ski championships in Oberhof, 1968

Axel Lesser (born April 18, 1946 in Brotterode ) is a former German cross-country skier .

Axel Lesser took part in three Olympic Winter Games. In 1968 he reached the 36th place in Grenoble over 30 kilometers, over 15 kilometers he did not finish and with the relay he finished seventh. Four years later in Sapporo , Lesser was sixth over 15 kilometers, twelfth and sixth over 30 kilometers with the East German relay. At the 1976 Winter Games in Innsbruck , he was 17th over 30 kilometers. In the relay race, the GDR with the line-up Gerd Heßler , Lesser, Gerhard Grimmer and Gert-Dietmar Klause was one of the favorites alongside the teams from Finland, Norway, Sweden and the Soviet Union. When he switched from Hessler to Lesser, the GDR was in second place behind the Swedes, after 1.5 kilometers Lesser took the lead. In one descent, however, he collided with an unknown woman and injured himself, which is why the GDR relay had to give up the race. As Lesser reported 30 years later, he suspected the woman was a Soviet supervisor who wanted to help her own squadron with shoe problems and accidentally bumped into him. Statements by the Swede Christer Johansson and the Finn Juha Mieto as well as the Swedish team manager Lars Öster support Lesser's statements. Due to the political situation in the GDR, however, Lesser could never express his suspicions publicly before the political change. The Soviet Union finally won the bronze medal behind Finland and Norway.

Already at the beginning of the 1970s, the GDR was able to advance to the top of the world in the relay competition; at the 1970 World Cup in the High Tatras , the GDR relay with the cast of Hessler, Lesser, Grimmer and Klause surprisingly won silver behind the relay from the USSR . In the Nordic World Ski Championships 1974 in Falun , the GDR won Season, Lesser had when winning the gold medal but look injured, his place was taken by Dieter Meinel one.

In his active time Lesser started for the ASK Vorwärts Oberhof . After the accident at the Olympic relay competition, he had to end his career because of chronic knee problems. Today he lives in his birthplace Brotterode. His grandson Erik Lesser is a biathlete .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gunnar Meinhardt : Axel Lesser and the riddle about the clash of Innsbruck ; Die Welt, February 7, 2006
personal data
SURNAME Lesser, Axel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cross-country skier
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Brotterode , Germany