Fritz Ligges

Fritz Ligges at the Nations' Cup of Show Jumping in Rotterdam 1971

Fritz Ligges (born July 29, 1938 in Asseln ; † May 21, 1996 in Herbern ) was a German eventing and show jumping rider and national youth coach. He celebrated success in the 1960s to 1980s, including winning individual and team medals at the Olympic Games .

biography

Private

Ligges was born into a farming family. His father bred draft horses as workhorses for sale and kept a couple of ponies. Ligges learned to ride and handle horses on these ponies at a young age. He attended secondary school in Dortmund and, after graduating, the agricultural school there, only to one day take over his father's farm. He broke off his two-year practical training on a farm prematurely in order to devote himself entirely to riding.

In 1968 he married Ulrike Lauterjung, with whom he had two sons.

Sporty

In 1959 he drew attention to himself through success in rural tournaments and was invited by the DOKR to courses in Warendorf , where he was taught by Hans Günter Winkler , among others . At that time Ligge's main focus was still on eventing. As early as 1960 he qualified for the Olympic Games in this discipline, but was not nominated because more experienced riders were given preference. In 1961 and 1962 he won the German championship of eventing riders with Föhn .

In order to be able to optimally prepare for the Olympic Games in 1964 , he moved to Warendorf with his horses for two years in 1962. The qualification was successful and this time there was no doubt about his nomination, even if his best horse Föhn was injured. On his second horse Donkosak , he won the bronze medal in the team and in the individual competition at the Olympic competitions. After the games he turned around and devoted himself primarily to show jumping.

From 1967 Ligges became more and more involved as a trainer, whereby he was nicknamed "ladies trainer" by his riding colleagues because he mainly taught Amazons.

Ligges was able to qualify again for the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich and was also nominated for the team. And although he and his horse Robin were rated in advance as the weakest couple in the German quartet with Gerd Wiltfang , Hartwig Steenken and Hans Günter Winkler, they proved their skills and finished the team competition as the best German couple, which the team concluded with a gold medal.

For this he was awarded the silver bay leaf on December 11, 1964.

Shortly after the Olympic competition, his horse Robin broke his leg and had to be put down after a long fight. That was also one reason that Ligges focused more and more on the training of young horses and riders. For example, the then Swiss talent Markus Fuchs was trained at Ligges.

Parallel to his career, Ligges was also involved in breeding and built up his own stud , whose first figurehead was the stallion Ramiro until he was sold to Leon Melchior in Zangersheide in 1979 . Ligges also sold his parents' farm in 1979 and built a new property near Münster, where the Ligges stud is still located today.

He qualified for the last time for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and won the team bronze medal on Ramzes .

In 1986 Ligges retired from active sport and took over the office of national coach for juniors and young riders, with whom he won a total of 34 medals at international championships by 1996. In 1990 he was awarded the title of riding master by the FN . He was also heavily involved in the Westphalian Horse Studbook , of which he was a member of the board for ten years and where he was a member of the licensing committee and the auction team .

On May 21, 1996 Ligges died of a heart attack in his hometown of Herbern. In memory of him, a newly built street in Dortmund's Asseln district was named Fritz-Ligges-Straße in 2010 .

successes

• Olympic games:
  • 1964 in Tokyo : bronze medal team, bronze medal individual on Donkosak in eventing
  • 1972 in Munich : Gold medal team, individual ranking 8th on Robin in show jumping
  • 1984 in Los Angeles : bronze medal team on Ramzes in show jumping
• Further:
  • 2 × German eventing rider champion (1961 and 1962 each on Föhn )
  • Winner of the German Grand Prix (1966 on Finette )

swell

1. ↑ Sports report of the Federal Government of September 29, 1973 to the Bundestag - Printed matter 7/1040 - page 71
2. ↑ http://www.pferd-aktuell.de/misc/filePush.php?id=2577&name=Reitmeister
3. ^ Fritz Ligges: Remembering "laughing rider" , Anja Schröder for the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , September 28, 2010
4. ↑ Database on the homepage of the IOC May 2006
5. ↑ www.sport-komplett.de May 2006

literature

• Eckhard F. Schröter: The happiness of this earth ...: Life and career of German show jumpers. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1980, ISBN 3-596-23019-5 .

Web links

Commons : Fritz Ligges  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Website of the Ligges Stud