Erika Zuchold

Erika Zuchold (left in the picture, right Ursula Trensinger, 1967)

Erika Zuchold jumping on horseback during the GDR women's gymnastics championships in the Berlin Dynamo sports hall, December 6, 1969

Erika Zuchold , née Erika Barth , (born March 19, 1947 in Lucka , Altenburg district ; † August 22, 2015 in Asunción , Paraguay ) was a German gymnast . She won four silver medals and one bronze medal at the Olympic Games .

Life

Zuchold became world-famous for the element Flickflack (hand support flap backwards), which she showed on June 7, 1964 as the first gymnast on the balance beam . In 1970 she became world champion in horse jumping and on the beam as well as vice world champion in all-around. For this she was voted GDR Sportswoman of the Year in the same year . She started for SC Leipzig and trained with Ellen Berger and Sylvia Hlavacek .

Erika Zuchold ended her athletic career in 1972 and then worked as an art teacher, tap dancer and trapeze artist. She later worked as a painter and sculptor and had several exhibitions, most recently in February 2015 at the Kulturhaus Leuna . In June 2015 she emigrated to Paraguay because her mother and sister live there. She died there two months later.

In 2005 Erika Zuchold was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame . She was married to the cyclist Dieter Zuchold (1937-2014).

Olympic success in gymnastics

• 1968 silver medal in jumping
• 1968 bronze medal with the GDR team
• 1972 silver medal in jumping
• 1972 silver medal on uneven bars
• 1972 silver medal with the GDR team

Awards (selection)

• 1968 and 1971 - Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver
• 1972 - Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold

literature

• Volker Kluge :  Zuchold, Erika . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Erika Zuchold  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Erika Zuchold in the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (English)
• Erika Zuchold in the database of the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (English)
• Erika Zuchold in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Former world-class gymnast Zuchold has died
2. ↑ Uljana Wuttig-Vogler: Erika Zuchold in the Kulturhaus Leuna: Ex-GDR gymnast presents herself as an artist. In: mz-web.de. February 3, 2015, accessed August 27, 2015 . 
3. ^ N-tv news television: Lifelong dream circus: GDR gymnast Zuchold died - n-tv.de. In: n-tv.de. August 27, 2015, accessed August 27, 2015 .