Birgit Radochla

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Birgit Radochla at the GDR championship in 1961

Birgit Radochla (born January 31, 1945 in Döbern , after marriage to Birgit Michailoff ) is a former German gymnast who became the first gymnast in the GDR to win an Olympic medal in 1964.

Career

Birgit Radochla is the daughter of a sports teacher and a gymnast; her father Helmut Radochla was the first GDR champion on the pommel horse in 1949. In 1956 she came to the children's and youth sports school in Forst , in 1961 she was delegated to SC Dynamo Berlin . In the same year she won the GDR championship in all-around and on the balance beam; in the horse jump and on the uneven bars she reached second place behind Ute Starke . Radochla benefited from the injury-related absence of the actually strongest GDR gymnast Ingrid Föst . In 1962 Radochla took second place behind Föst on the ground. At the 1962 World Cup in Prague, Radochla finished fifth with the GDR squad. In the all-around only eighteenth, she reached fourth place in the horse jump.

In 1963 Radochla won the GDR championship in all-around, horse jumping and on the ground. In 1964 she won the horse jumping and uneven bars and took second place behind Erika Barth in the other three disciplines . In the qualification for the all-German team in Wolfsburg and Schwerin, gymnasts from the GDR took the first eight places, with Barth winning ahead of Radochla and Föst. Erika Barth was injured before the Olympic Games and was out. Birgit Radochla, Ingrid Föst, Ute Starke as well as Karin Mannewitz, Christel Felgner and Barbara Stolz narrowly missed the bronze medal of the Japanese as Olympic champions. Birgit Radochla also took fourth place in the individual all-around competition. While her gap to third-placed Polina Astachowa was clear in the all- around competition , she missed bronze on the floor by a thousandth of a point compared to the Hungarian Anikó Jánosi . Věra Čáslavská won gold in the horse jump , followed by Larissa Latynina and Birgit Radochla together with silver with the same number of points. A year later, the European Championship in 1965 in Sofia Radochla was the last start in a major championship. Věra Čáslavská won all five competitions, Latynina received four silver and one bronze. Birgit Radochla won bronze in the all-around competition and on the balance beam and took second place on the floor together with Latynina. 4th place on the uneven bars and sixth place in the horse jump rounded off Radochla's result. After that, Radochla stopped participating in international championships due to various injuries.

The somersault between the bars on the uneven bars, first shown by the Czech Hana Růžičková , was so perfected by Birgit Radochla that the Radochla role was and is considered a separate technical element.

In her private life, Birgit Radochla completed her training as a kindergarten teacher, an apprenticeship as a beautician and a degree in sports at the DHfK .

Awards

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 .
  • Volker Kluge: Summer Olympic Games. The Chronicle II. London 1948 - Tokyo 1964. Sportverlag Berlin, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-328-00740-7 .

Web links

Commons : Birgit Radochla  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Radochla roll on youtube
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung , November 17, 1964, p. 3
personal data
SURNAME Radochla, Birgit
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German gymnast
DATE OF BIRTH January 31, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Döbern