Gerd Bonk

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Gerd Bonk Weightlifting
Federal Archives Image 183-P0706-0010, Mühlhausen, Gerd Bonk.jpg

Nationality: Germany Democratic Republic 1949GDR German Democratic Republic
Society: SC Karl-Marx-Stadt
Date of birth: August 26, 1951
Place of birth: Limbach
Date of death: 20th October 2014
Place of death: Greiz
Medal table
Olympic medals 0 × gold 1 × silver 1 × bronze
World Cup medals 2 × gold 5 × silver 6 × bronze
Medals

Gerd Bonk (born August 26, 1951 in Limbach , Plauen district , Saxony ; † October 20, 2014 in Greiz ) was a German weightlifter who started for the GDR on an international level . He belonged to the SC Karl-Marx-Stadt sports club and, as a 15-time medalist at the Olympic Games and World Championships in the 1970s, was one of the world's most successful protagonists of his sport. In addition, the Saxon was the first GDR weightlifter to set a world record in both the junior and senior classes. After the end of his competitive sports career, Bonk first worked in his learned profession as a car mechanic and in 1989 became a disability pensioner. He was considered one of the most famous victims of doping in GDR competitive sports .

Career

Gerd Bonk, 1979

The Vogtlander Bonk started at BSG Motor Nema Netzschkau as an athlete and in 1967 set a GDR youth record in the shot put with 17.82 m. In addition to the shot put, he also did weightlifting to build up the necessary strength. When he also took part in weightlifting competitions and his successes were greater than in the shot put, in 1969 he decided entirely for weightlifting, which he now practiced at SC Karl-Marx-Stadt . His trainer was Klaus Kroll , a former top lifter in the GDR. In 1971 he was the first time GDR super heavyweight champion (at that time over 110 kg body weight). However, his international debut in the same year at the Baltic Cup in Lübeck failed because he had three failed attempts to press . Nevertheless, he managed to jump to the top of the world in a very short time.

With his bronze medal from the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, Bonk gave GDR weightlifting the second Olympic medal in history, after his clubmate Stefan Grützner had also won bronze two days earlier. In 1975 Bonk was the first GDR weightlifter to set a world record in his specialty, pushing . In 1976 he set another world record in pushing. In the same year he won the silver medal in his second Olympic participation in Montreal . For this success he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit.

In 1980 Bonk was diagnosed with severe diabetes . Nevertheless, he was nominated for the upcoming Olympic Games in Moscow , after he continued to lift at a high level and had also won the bronze medal at the European Championships. However, due to a positive result in an internal doping test, Bonk was deregistered shortly before the start of the Olympic competition. Then the most successful GDR weightlifter to date ended his career.

After retiring from competitive sports, Bonk first worked in his hometown Limbach as an industrial foreman for automotive technology. In 1989, at the age of 37, he received a disability pension. In the last years of his life he was dependent on a wheelchair due to severe kidney and other organ damage.

Bonk died on October 20, 2014 in Greiz, Thuringia, at the age of 63 after a long illness.

Bonk as a doping victim

For example, studies by Hans-Henning Lathan , then a doctor of the GDR weightlifting association, which became known after the fall of the Wall , showed that Bonk had consumed a total of 12.775 grams of steroids in 1979 , 11.55 grams of the anabolic oral Turinabol alone . After he had no longer performed the sporting performance required of him, he was dropped from the GDR sports system. After the end of his career, Bonk suffered from severe diabetes , kidney dysfunction and other organ damage. Most recently, as a dialysis patient, he was only able to move around in a wheelchair.

Werner Franke described the GDR sports doctors' dealings with Bonk as a "great crime in sports medicine". In 2002 Bonk was awarded the Georg von Opel Prize in the “Special Fighters” category. According to the Doping Victims Aid Act, which came into force in 2002, Bonk was one of the 200 recognized GDR doping victims. He received a one-time compensation of 10,438 euros. Bonk summed up: "Burned out by the GDR, forgotten by the unified Germany", as he waited in vain for a state pension for doping victims.

successes

International placements in all-around

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, S = super heavyweight, competitions up to 1972 in the Olympic three-way fight, consisting of pushing, tearing and pushing, from 1973 onwards in a duel consisting of tearing and pushing)

  • 1972, 2nd place , "Grand Prix of Berlin" in Berlin (GDR), S, with 540 kg, behind Manfred Rieger , GDR, 572.5 kg; Werner Arnold
  • 1972, 3rd place , EM in Constanța , S, with 565 kg, behind Vasily Alexejew , USSR , 632.5 kg and Rudolf Mang , FRG, 630 kg;
  • 1972, bronze medal , OS + WM in Munich , S, with 572.5 kg, behind Alexejew, 640 kg and Mang, 610 kg;
  • 1972, 2nd place , Grand Prix of Tashkent , S, with 380 kg, behind Serge Reding , Belgium , 390 kg;
  • 1973, unplaced , EM in Madrid , S, after three failed attempts in the tear;
  • 1973, 4th place , World Championship in Havana , S, with 382.5 kg, behind Alexejew, 402.5 kg, Mang, 400 kg and Stanislav Batischew , USSR, 392.5 kg;
  • 1974, 2nd place , EM in Verona , S, with 402.5 kg, behind Alexejew, 422.5 kg and in front of Reding, 400 kg;
  • 1974, unplaced , World Championship in Manila , S, with 3 failed attempts in pushing;
  • 1975, 2nd place , Grand Prix of the USSR, S, with 400 kg, behind Jenaldiew, USSR, 412.5 kg and in front of Kuzmin, USSR, 395 kg;
  • 1975, 2nd place , WM + EM in Moscow , S, with 422.5 kg, behind Alexejew, 427.5 kg and in front of Plachkow, Bulgaria , 420 kg;
  • 1976, 1st place , EM in Berlin (GDR), S, with 432.5 kg, ahead of Plachkow, 430 kg and Jürgen Heuser , GDR , 410 kg;
  • 1976, silver medal , OS + WM in Montreal , S, with 405 kg, behind Alexejew, 440 kg and in front of Helmut Losch , GDR, 387.5 kg;
  • 1978, 3rd place , EM in Havířov , S, with 402.5 kg, behind Alexejew, 514 kg and Heuser, 407.5 kg;
  • 1978, 3rd place , World Championship in Gettysburg , S, with 410 kg, behind Heuser, 417.5 kg and Sultan Rachmanow , USSR, 417.5 kg;
  • 1979, 1st place , EM in Varna , S, with 427.5 kg, ahead of Heuser, 422.5 kg and Rudolf Strejczek, CSSR, 390 kg (Rachmanow had three failed attempts in jerking);
  • 1979, 3rd place , World Championship in Saloniki , S, with 412.5 kg, behind Rachmanow, 430 kg and Heuser, 420 kg;
  • 1980, 3rd place , EM in Belgrade, S, behind Rachmanow and Evgeni Popow , Bulgaria, 417.5 kg
Individual medals at European championships
  • EM gold medals: 1974 with 235 kg, 1975 with 242.5 kg, 1976 with 252.5 kg, each in the push
  • EM silver medals: 1979 with 185 kg in snatch, 1979 with 242.5 kg and 1980 with 235 kg each in jerk,
  • EM bronze medals: 1976 with 180 kg in snatch, 1971 with 215 kg, 1978 with 230 kg each in jerk
GDR championships

In 1971, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977 and 1979 Gerd Bonk became GDR champions in the all-around competition and won another 15 GDR championship titles in the individual disciplines of pushing (until 1972), tearing and pushing.

World records

(all scored in super heavyweight)

in two-armed thrusting:

literature

Web links

Commons : Gerd Bonk  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ National Statistics 1946 - 1990 / World and European records for East German weightlifters 1946 - 1990 , in: Bürger, Hilmar; Müller, Stefan: "Weightlifting Germany Total" Part 2: 1946-1990 facts, history (s) , sports statistics CD, IWA - International Weightlifting Agency Berlin, 2008
  2. ↑ Doping victims can expect 10,000 euros . handelsblatt.com. 2003. Retrieved November 3, 2011.
  3. ↑ Statistics National 1946 - 1990 / East German medalists 1956 - 1990 , in: Bürger, Hilmar; Müller, Stefan: "Weightlifting Germany Total" Part 2: 1946-1990 facts, history (s) , sports statistics CD, IWA - International Weightlifting Agency Berlin, 2008
  4. ↑ About the honor for the Olympic team of the GDR. Awarded high government awards. Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze. In: New Germany . September 10, 1976, p. 4 , accessed on April 10, 2018 (online at ZEFYS - newspaper portal of the Berlin State Library , free registration required).
  5. ^ Kluge, Volker: The large lexicon of GDR athletes , New Life Publishing House, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-355-01759-6 , p. 45 ff.
  6. ↑ Neues Deutschland , edition of July 31, 1980, p. 7: An upset stomach was given as the official reason for Bonk's decision not to start.
  7. ^ Ex-weightlifter Bonk has died. Report on sport1.de from October 21, 2014 (accessed on October 21, 2014).
  8. ^ Victims of the GDR system. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 21, 2014 (accessed October 21, 2014).
  9. ^ " Burned up by the GDR, forgotten by the FRG" In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of October 21, 2014 (accessed on October 21, 2014)
personal data
SURNAME Bonk, Gerd
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German weightlifter
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Limbach
DATE OF DEATH 20th October 2014
Place of death Greiz