Bärbel Koester

Bärbel Köster (left) and Carola Zirzow during training in Montreal in 1976

Barbara "Bärbel" Köster , after marriage to Bärbel Madaus , (born May 26, 1957 in Lübbersdorf ) is a former German canoeist . She won four world championship titles and an Olympic bronze medal for the GDR .

Bärbel Köster started for SC Neubrandenburg , where she was trained by Horst Kautzke . Together with Anke Ohde, she won silver in a two-man kayak and gold in a four-man kayak at the European Junior Championships in 1973 . In 1974 she took part in the adult class for the first time in Mexico City. In a two-person kayak she won together with Anke Ohde and together with Ilse Kaschube and Carola Zirzow they also won in a four-person kayak. In 1975 at the World Championships in Belgrade, Bärbel Köster competed in a two-man kayak with Carola Zirzow and defended her world title. The boat from the GDR also won the title again in the four-seater kayak, with Anke Ohde and Bettina Müller in the four-seater alongside Zirzow and Köster . At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, only the single kayak and the two-person kayak were on the program. Carola Zirzow won in a single kayak, and in a two-person kayak, Zirzow and Köster received bronze behind the boats from the Soviet Union and Hungary.

In 1974 she received the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze for her sporting success .

Köster learned the trade of business clerk and later worked in a rehabilitation center in Neubrandenburg.

literature

• Volker Kluge : The great lexicon of GDR athletes. The 1000 most successful and popular athletes from the GDR, their successes and biographies. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-348-9 , p. 211.

Web links

• Bärbel Köster in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• World Championships women