Gudrun Abbot

Gudrun Maria Abt (born August 3, 1962 in Riedlingen ) is a former German athlete and Olympic participant.

Gudrun Abt was German champion in the 400 meter hurdles from 1986 to 1988, from 1982 to 1991 she was always in the finals of the German championships. Until the German reunification in 1990, the Swabian was listed as the record holder for the Federal Republic of Germany with 54.04 seconds in the record lists of the German Athletics Association (DLV).

Abts rise to the world class was first indicated in 1987 when she climbed to 55.59 seconds in her semi-final run at the World Athletics Championships in Rome and was fifth and missed the finals by just four hundredths of a second.

At the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul , she set her personal best when she finished sixth in 54.04 s. With the German 4 x 400 meter relay , she finished fourth in the Olympic final in 3: 22.49 min with the cast of Ute Thimm , Helga Arendt , Andrea Thomas , Gudrun Abt.

At the European Athletics Championships in 1990 in Split, Abt was fourth in 54.97, 22 hundredths of a second behind.

A year later, due to persistent injury problems, she only managed to qualify at the very last minute for the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo in 1991, where she was eliminated with 56.17 seconds in the semifinals.

A few weeks later, Abt announced her retirement from competitive sports. The then 29-year-old cited recurring injury problems as one of the reasons. In addition, the extensive training leaves her little time for her job or anything else.

Abt achieved a total of three improvements to the DLV record, which was held by the German Athletics Association DLV as a German record for the Federal Republic of Germany: On June 19, 1988, Abt scored 54.91 seconds at the German Athletics Championships in Düsseldorf. She made further increases on September 26th and 29th when she scored 54.52 seconds and 54.04 seconds in the semifinals and finals of the Seoul Olympics. This mark remained the DLV record until the reunification of the German states and the merging of the record lists in 1990.

She ran her best times of 52.2 s over 400 meters and 54.04 s in the 400-meter hurdles in 1988. At a height of 1.78 m, she had a competition weight of 61 kg.

Web links

• Gudrun Abt in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )