Gerd Schönfelder

The title of this article is ambiguous. For the director of the same name, see Gerd Schönfelder (director)

Gerd Schönfelder
Gerd Schönfelder (2019)
nation	Germany
birthday	2nd September 1970 (age 49)
place of birth	Kulmain , Germany
size	185 cm
Career
discipline	Downhill , super-G , giant slalom , slalom
status	resigned
End of career	January 2011
Medal table
Paralympics 16 × 4 × 2 × World championships 14 × 5 × 1 ×
Winter Paralympics gold 1992 Albertville Departure gold 1992 Albertville Super G gold 1992 Albertville Giant slalom gold 1994 Lillehammer Departure gold 1994 Lillehammer slalom silver 1994 Lillehammer Super G silver 1994 Lillehammer Giant slalom gold 1998 Nagano slalom bronze 1998 Nagano Giant slalom gold 2002 Salt Lake City Departure gold 2002 Salt Lake City Super G gold 2002 Salt Lake City Giant slalom gold 2002 Salt Lake City slalom gold 2006 Turin Departure gold 2006 Turin Giant slalom silver 2006 Turin Super G bronze 2006 Turin slalom gold 2010 Vancouver Departure gold 2010 Vancouver Super G gold 2010 Vancouver Giant slalom gold 2010 Vancouver Super combination silver 2010 Vancouver slalom

Gerd Schönfelder (born September 2, 1970 in Kulmain ) is a German ski racer who won a total of 22 medals, including 16 gold, at Paralympic Games .

Schönfelder has had a shoulder amputation since an accident at the age of 19. In 1992 he took part in the Winter Paralympics for the first time and won his first three gold medals there. Up to the end of his career in 2011, he achieved medal ranks several times in every subsequent Paralympic event and was also 14-time world champion. Schönfelder holds an outstanding position in German disabled sports and was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports in 2018 .

Athletic career

Beginnings and Accident

Schönfelder, who grew up in the Upper Palatinate region , started skiing at SV Kulmain when he was a child . He won several club championships and at the age of twelve was Bavarian runner-up in his age group in giant slalom . He decided not to have the opportunity to attend the ski school in Berchtesgaden . The reason he later stated was that he “did not want to move away from a buddy or a family”. In the following years he saw skiing exclusively as a hobby and did not aim for a sports career.

As a result of a train accident in Hersbruck in September 1989, Schönfelder lost his right arm and four fingers in his left hand. While trying to get on the approaching train, he was carried away and pulled into the gap between the train and the platform. After the rehabilitation phase, which lasted several months, a microsurgeon transplanted Schönfeld's left index toe as a finger onto the left hand, so that he could grip again with the remaining thumb.

Success in disabled sports

Through a report on the world championship title of the leg amputee Alexander Spitz , Schönfelder became aware of alpine handicapped skiing in 1990. In Balderschwang , he took part in a course run by the national ski team, where, on the advice of the coach, he switched to skiing without a ski pole. At first he started with a stick in his left hand, but could not use it according to his ideas. Schönfelder quickly integrated himself into the team and, in retrospect, called his initial situation a "stroke of luck" for the ski association: On the one hand, he had already gained skiing experience and at the same time was comparatively young when he was amputated at the age of 19 longer careers can be built. In spring 1991 Schönfelder won his first German championship title and competed in the World Cup. He was initially looked after by Werner Haberstock , who was alpine national trainer in the German Disabled Sports Association until 2002.

In 1992 Schönfelder took part in the Winter Paralympics for the first time in Albertville , where he won gold in all three races in downhill, giant slalom and super-G in his starting class (he was not used in the slalom). By 2010 Schönfelder was a 16-time Paralympic winner and won a medal in all 22 competitions in which he competed. In 1994 he won downhill and slalom in Lillehammer, while the Norwegian Cato Zahl Pedersen beat him in super-G and giant slalom. At the 1998 Paralympics in Nagano, Schönfelder tore a cruciate ligament in a training fall. He missed the first two competitions, but a week later, after intensive physiotherapy, he went to bronze in giant slalom and gold in slalom. With four gold medals in all four disciplines, Schönfelder was together with mono-skier Martin Braxenthaler in Salt Lake City in 2002 as the most successful athlete in the German Paralympics line-up.

Up to and including 2002, up to nine different Paralympics winners were chosen per discipline, as one-armed and two-armed amputees competed in different classes. From the Winter Paralympics 2006 in Turin, a new classification system was in place, which combined all participants who completed their races standing - with the exception of the blind and in contrast to the seated athletes - in the standing class . The time driven was offset against the degree of disability in order to ensure equal opportunities. This significantly reduced the number of Paralympic gold medals awarded: In 2002 there were 34 competitions for ski racers, in 2006 there were 12 (each related to men). Schönfelder also prevailed several times against the competition, which was now considered to be much stronger: In Turin he won two gold medals in downhill and giant slalom, four years later in Vancouver - now largely supervised by Maike Hujara - he won four of five competitions, including the First Super Combination of Super G and Slalom. With this 16th gold medal, he drew level with Reinhild Möller , who had won most of the Paralympic races in the alpine area up to that point.

In addition to the Winter Paralympics, Schönfelder also won other alpine competitions. At the World Ski Championships for the disabled , he won a total of 14 gold medals between 1996 and 2011 and made it onto the podium six more times. In the standing ranking he was also the first overall World Cup winner in the 1996/97 season and repeated this success seven times by the winter of 2009/10. After the 2011 World Cup , Schönfelder announced his retirement from competitive sports. He then took over a position in the coaching team of the disabled national team.

Personal

Schönfelder at the charity soccer game Champions for Charity (2019)

Schönfelder grew up as the second of three siblings. Before his accident, he trained as an electronics engineer and later trained as an electrical engineer. He worked in this profession until 2002 and subsequently concentrated on skiing as a professional athlete. Since the end of his career, he has appeared as an ARD expert on Paralympic sports and has given motivational lectures. Schönfelder initially used a myoelectric prosthesis for the amputated arm manufactured by Heidelberg University Hospital for optical purposes, but discarded it in the early 1990s. Schönfelder has been married since 2006 and has two children (* 2007, * 2010). He is involved in local politics, was elected to the municipal council of his home town of Kulmain in 2008 and moved two years later as a CSU deputy to the district council of the Tirschenreuth district .

Schönfelder has been playing football at SV Kulmain since he was a young boy , where he played for the first team in the district league as an attacking midfielder. He described the comparison with non-disabled athletes as particularly attractive.

Public image and appreciation

During the two decades that Schönfelder competed on an international level, disabled sports moved more into the media focus. In the 2000s in particular, Schönfelder, together with the mono- skier Martin Braxenthaler and the blind biathlete and cross-country skier Verena Bentele, was one of the central figures of this development in Germany, as he appeared regularly in the media due to his successes. For the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung , Uwe Marx described Schönfelder in 2006 as a “gauge of whether professional winter sports work for the disabled” and attributed the pioneering role of the skier to his “charming Bavarian” manner and to his willingness to take risks in competitions. Schönfeld's aggressive driving style earned him the nickname “Bull of Kulmain ”. The biography Sieger , written by sports journalist Detlef Vetten and published in 2016, depicts Schönfelder as a self-confident, authentic and direct person. He has an “enviable ego” and after his accident he built a new life with ambition and “tremendous willpower”.

Schönfelder received the silver laurel leaf four times (1998, 2002, 2006 and 2010) and was named German disabled athlete of the year three times (2006, 2010 and 2011) . In 2002 he was nominated for the Laureus World Sports Award , nine years later the International Paralympic Committee awarded him the title of Athlete of the Year . In 2012, top German athletes voted him champion of the year . In 2018, Schönfelder was the first disabled athlete to be inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports .

successes

Paralympic Games

• Albertville 1992 : 1st downhill, 1st Super-G, 1st giant slalom
• Lillehammer 1994 : 1st descent, 1st slalom, 2nd Super-G, 2nd giant slalom
• Nagano 1998 : 1st slalom, 3rd giant slalom
• Salt Lake City 2002 : 1st downhill, 1st Super-G, 1st giant slalom, 1st slalom
• Turin 2006 : 1st downhill, 1st giant slalom, 2nd Super-G, 3rd slalom
• Vancouver 2010 : 1st downhill, 1st super G, 1st giant slalom, 1st super combination, 2nd slalom

World championships

• Lech am Arlberg 1996 : 1st descent, 1st Super-G, 1st giant slalom, 1st slalom
• Anzere 2000 : 1st descent, 1st Super-G, 1st slalom
• Wildschönau 2004 : 1st descent, 2nd giant slalom, 4th Super-G, 5th slalom
• High1 2009 : 1st downhill, 1st super combination, 1st giant slalom, 1st team competition, 2nd super G, 4th slalom
• Sestriere 2011 : 1st downhill, 1st super-G, 2nd super combination, 2nd slalom, 2nd team competition, 3rd giant slalom

Honors

• Silver bay leaf 1998
• Silver bay leaf 2002
• Silver bay leaf 2006
• Silver bay leaf 2010
• 1992: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 1996: “Sportsman of the year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 1998: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 1999: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2000: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2002: “Sportsman of the year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2004: Sports award from the Bavarian Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber
• 2004: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2004: "Now-especially-Price" of the Bavarian Sports Prize
• 2006: Disabled Athlete of the Year
• 2006: "Winter Star" of the Bavarian Radio and the Bild-Zeitung
• 2006: Honorary citizen of his home parish Kulmain
• 2006: Honorary member of SV Kulmain
• 2006: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2009: “Sportsman of the Year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2010: " Juan Antonio Samaranch Award " IOC Disabled Award
• 2010: Sports award from the Bavarian Prime Minister Horst Seehofer
• 2010: “Sportsman of the year” in the readers' choice of the daily newspaper Der neue Tag
• 2010: Disabled Athlete of the Year
• 2011: Disabled Athlete of the Year
• 2011: Paralympic Sport Award (World Disabled Athlete) from the International Paralympic Committee IPC
• 2012: Champion of the year from Deutscher Sporthilfe / Robinson Clubs
• 2018: Induction into the Hall of Fame of German Sports

literature

• Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. The workshop, Göttingen 2016, ISBN 978-3-7307-0286-4 .
• Gerd Schönfelder in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Web links

• Gerd Schönfelder's website
• BR television: cruiser meets ... Gerd Schönfelder in Kulmain in the Upper Palatinate. Published on November 24, 2019.
• Profile on paralympic.org.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Benjamin Apitius: "Lick me, you have to go there too!" In: Der Tagesspiegel. March 9, 2018.
2. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 119.
3. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. The workshop, Göttingen 2016, p. 26.
4. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, pp. 77–85.
5. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. The workshop, Göttingen 2016, p. 97.
6. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 96.
7. ↑ Instead of being on the slopes, he is now at the stove on all-in.de. Released October 11, 2002, accessed May 29, 2020.
8. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 133.
9. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, pp. 135–142.
10. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, pp. 143f.
11. ↑ Thomas Hahn: Heilsame Sliming. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 10, 2006, p. 37. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
12. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 148
13. ↑ Brigitte Muschiol: Gerd Schönfelder: Seized the opportunities that showed up on mobitipp.de. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
14. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 50f.
15. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 125.
16. ↑ biography on personal website. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
17. ↑ dpa : Schönfelder says hello: From the slopes to politics. In: Augsburger Allgemeine. January 25, 2011.
18. ↑ dpa: Give up or accelerate. In: Mainpost. October 24, 2005.
19. ↑ Gerd Schönfelder. In: Internationales Sportarchiv, 33/2013 from August 6, 2013 (mb), supplemented by news from MA-Journal until week 29/2018; accessed on May 31, 2020 via Munzinger Online .
20. ↑ Thomas Hahn: Talking is gold. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 20, 2006, p. 31. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
21. ↑ Uwe Marx: The German Hermann Maier. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. March 19, 2006.
22. ↑ Hannah Frasch-Melnik: 2011: Interview with Gerd Schönfelder. In: Deutsche Welle. 17th June 2016.
23. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2016, p. 170. “And that is what the people who meet Gerd Schönfelder feel. You like his language, it's unaffected and direct. "
24. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. The workshop, Göttingen 2016, p. 116.
25. ↑ Detlef Vetten: Winner: the life of Gerd Schönfelder. The workshop, Göttingen 2016, p. 100.
26. ^ "Madness": Schönfelder in the "Hall of Fame". In: Kicker. October 13, 2018.