Christel Meinel

Christel Meinel (m. Meinel-Stumpf)
nation	German Democratic Republic
birthday	24th December 1957 (age 62)
place of birth	GDR
Career
job	Physiotherapist
discipline	Cross-country skiing
society	SC Dynamo Klingenthal
National squad	since 1975
status	resigned
End of career	1979
Medal table
World Cup medals 0 × 1 × 0 × DDRM medals 2 × 2 × 5 ×
Nordic World Ski Championships silver 1978 Lahti Season GDR championships bronze 1975 5 kilometers bronze 1975 Season bronze 1976 Season bronze 1977 10 kilometer silver 1977 Season gold 1978 5 kilometers gold 1978 10 kilometer silver 1978 Season bronze 1979 Season

Christel Meinel-Stumpf , divorced Meinel-Buse (born December 24, 1957 as Christel Meinel ), is a former German cross-country skier who started for the SC Dynamo Klingenthal and the GDR national team. Her greatest success was winning the silver medal with the 4x5km relay at the Nordic World Ski Championships in 1978 in Lahti, Finland .

Life

Christel Meinel is the younger sister of cross-country skier and Olympian Dieter Meinel . She was already on skis at the age of three and emulated her big brother. After good performance in the offspring, at the age of 13 she was delegated to the children's and youth sports school in Klingenthal . Her first major international competition was the European Junior Championships in March 1974 in Autrans , France , where the then 16-year-old won the relay silver and achieved 6th place over the 5 km.

In 1975 Meinel was able to fight for her first GDR championship medals. Over the 5 km sprint course, her bronze medal was also a surprise for the professional world, especially since she left Barbara Petzold, an athlete who was already successful at the time. There was also relay bronze, with the SC Dynamo Klingenthal team benefiting from a disqualification of the SC Motor Zella-Mehlis relay winners . At the European Junior Championships in Lieto , Finland , which took place at the end of February 1975, Meinel was able to defend the silver medal from the previous year together with Marion Büchner and Gabriele Kleditzsch , while she only reached 21st place over 5 km.

In the following 1976 Olympic season, Meinel was able to secure fifth place on the grid as a substitute for the 4x5km relay and thus the nomination for the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck in front of the defeated Marion Büchner in four elimination races alongside Barbara Petzold , Sigrun Krause , Monika Debertshäuser and Veronika Schmidt . In the Olympic competitions themselves, however, it was not used in any race. The season from Klingenthal, which was rather disappointing for Meinel, finished the season with bronze at the GDR championships. The post-Olympic season in 1977 had its climax with the GDR ski championships in Oberwiesenthal in mid-February. There, then 19-year-old Meinel was able to prove that her cross-country skiing career was not over yet. Surprisingly for the professional world, she won the bronze medal over the 10 km distance, but only one second behind the runner-up Sigrun Krause. Meinel followed this exclamation mark with the silver medal with the SC Dynamo Klingenthal relay.

The 1978 season would eventually develop into Meinel's best season. She set the first bang at the 30th GDR championships in Schmiedefeld over the 10 km decision when she won her first GDR championship title in the absence of Barbara Petzold and Veronika Schmidt. Two days later she was able to repeat this triumph over the 5 km sprint route. The double success was followed a day later by relay silver with the SC Dynamo Klingenthal. Now even the GDR selection coaches couldn't get past Meinel. The nomination for the Nordic World Ski Championships in Lahti, Finland, followed the GDR championships. However, alongside Barbara Petzold, Birgit Schreiber , Veronika Schmidt, Sigrun Filbrich-Krause and Marlies Rostock , Meinel was one of six nominated cross-country skiers. At the World Cup, however, Meinel turned out to be the best performing GDR representative. In the opening race over 10 km she finished ninth, in the 5 km sprint she finished fifth. After the more highly rated Filbrich-Krause and Schmidt performed rather disappointing in the individual decisions, the selection trainers decided on a relay with the only 17-year-old Birgit Schreiber and Marlies Rostock, the experienced Barbara Petzold and Christel Meinel as the final runners. In a thrilling relay race, in which the lead changed a total of 14 times, a three-way battle quickly developed among the nine relays between the teams from Finland, the USSR and the GDR. Christel Meinel finally took over the final lap in third place and after three kilometers was able to shake off Galina Kulakowa and follow the leading Finn Helena Takalo to the finish. In the end, Meinel was only beaten by the Finn by four seconds. Christel Meinel was able to record her greatest triumph to date with World Cup silver. Over the first 20 km distance she achieved an excellent tenth place three days later. The reward for this extremely successful season was the official appointment to Olympic candidate for the 1980 Olympic Games in Lake Placid in June 1978 .

In the pre-Olympic season in 1979, the women's ski race in Mühlleithen , the test competitions in Lake Placid and several World Cup test runs were the decisive competitions for cross-country skiers . However, Christel Meinel had to struggle with an eight-week training failure due to a torn ligament. Nevertheless, she did respectably in Mühlleiten as well as in other World Cup races, and was part of the first GDR relay in relay races. As a result, Meinel was also part of the squad that flew to Lake Placid for the pre-Olympic test competitions in early February. In addition to her, Barbara Petzold, Marlies Rostock and Marion Büchner were nominated. In the races over 5 and 10 km, the GDR quartet did a respectable job, over 10 km all four athletes were among the top ten. The weather conditions left a lot to be desired, however, with temperatures of −25 ° C during the 5 km run. For Christel Meinel, the trip to the USA marked the end of her career. For reasons that she still does not want to name, she had to say goodbye to competitive sports after the 1979 season, at the age of just 21. At the GDR women's championships at the end of March 1979 in Oberwiesenthal, she won another bronze medal with the Klingenthal relay team, after which competitive sport was over. A clue to the End of career could took place in July 1979 in Klingenthal wedding with the 1978 ski jumping world champion from 1978 Matthias Buse have been. Love relationships among competitive athletes were not welcomed by the NOK leadership and the couple, which had been childless up until then, could have fled the republic in Lake Placid according to the language used at the time.

Christel Meinel then completed training as a physiotherapist . From the meanwhile divorced marriage with Matthias Buse, two daughters sprang. After the political change, Christel Meinel ran an ice cream parlor in Klingenthal. In 2000 she had to undergo an operation and was given an artificial knee joint , also a result of competitive sports. After further operations, she is now drawing an EU pension and doing a mini job.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 10, 1975, p. 8
2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 23, 1976, p. 7
3. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 14, 1977, p. 8
4. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 6, 1978, p. 7
5. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 7, 1978, p. 5
6. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 8, 1978, p. 5
7. ↑ Neues Deutschland, February 23, 1978, p. 5
8. ↑ Neues Deutschland from June 13, 1978, p. 5
9. ↑ Neues Deutschland, December 27, 1979, p. 7
10. ↑ Neues Deutschland from January 30, 1979, p. 5
11. ↑ Neue Zeit of February 14, 1978, p. 5
12. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of July 11, 1979, p. 7
13. ↑ Monty Gräßler: On the special day: Cross-country skier is looking forward to seeing you again . In: Freie Presse , local edition Upper Vogtland of December 23, 2017, p. 18.