Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann

Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
nation	German Democratic Republic of Germany
birthday	September 7, 1966
place of birth	Sondershausen,  GDR
Career
society	SC Turbine Erfurt ESC Erfurt
Trainer	Gabriele Fuß (1985–1994) Stephan Gneupel (1994–2000) Klaus Ebert (2000–2005)
status	resigned
End of career	October 27, 2005
Medal table
Olympic medals 3 × 4 × 1 × World Cup medals 19 × 5 × 0 × World cup medals 98 × 24 × 9 × EM medals 8 × 3 × 0 × National medals 34 × 0 × 6 ×
winter Olympics gold 1992 Albertville 5000 m gold 1992 Albertville 3000 m silver 1992 Albertville 1500 m silver 1994 Lillehammer 5000 m bronze 1994 Lillehammer 1500 m silver 1998 Nagano 5000 m gold 1998 Nagano 3000 m silver 1998 Nagano 1500 m  All around world championships silver 1989 Lake Placid All-around gold 1991 Hamar All-around gold 1992 Heerenveen All-around gold 1993 Berlin All-around gold 1995 Tynset All-around gold 1996 Inzell All-around gold 1997 Nagano All-around gold 1998 Heerenveen All-around gold 1999 Hamar All-around silver 2000 Milwaukee All-around  Individual distance world championships gold 1996 Hamar 3000 m gold 1997 Warsaw 5000 m gold 1997 Warsaw 3000 m gold 1997 Warsaw 1500 m gold 1998 Calgary 5000 m gold 1998 Calgary 3000 m silver 1998 Calgary 1500 m gold 1999 Heerenveen 5000 m gold 1999 Heerenveen 3000 m silver 1999 Heerenveen 1500 m gold 2000 Nagano 5000 m silver 2000 Nagano 3000 m gold 2001 Salt Lake City 5000 m gold 2001 Salt Lake City 3000 m  All-around European Championships silver 1988 Kongsberg All-around gold 1989 Berlin All-around gold 1990 Heerenveen All-around gold 1991 Sarajevo All-around gold 1992 Heerenveen All-around gold 1994 Hamar All-around gold 1995 Heerenveen All-around gold 1996 Heerenveen All-around silver 1997 Heerenveen All-around silver 2000 Hamar All-around gold 2001 Baselga di Pinè All-around
Placements in the speed skating world cup
Debut in the World Cup November 22, 1987  World Cup victories 98  Total toilet 1500 1. (1990/91, 1991/92, 1992/93, 1994/95, 1995/96, 1997/98, 1998/99, 1999/2000)  Total toilet 3000/5000 1. (1989/90, 1991/92, 1992/93, 1993/94, 1994/95, 1995/96, 1997/98, 1998/99, 1999/2000, 2000/01)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  1000 meters 2 2 0  1500 meters 39 9 4th  3000 meters 42 11 4th  5000 meters 15th 2 1

Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann (born September 7, 1966 in Sondershausen , née Kleemann) is a former German speed skater who was the most successful international athlete in her sport in the 1990s. Between 1991 and 2001 she won 19 world titles and three Olympic gold medals. She has been the women's team coordinator since July 2020.

The Thuringian, who grew up in the GDR , celebrated her first successes in athletics and switched to speed skating in 1983. In the winter of 1987/88 she made her debut in the World Cup and quickly advanced to the top of the world: in 1988 she took part in the Olympic Games for the first time, and in 1989 she won her first international title as European all-around champion. As a result, she won the majority of the races in which she participated in the longer distances of 1500 meters, 3000 meters and 5000 meters. This strength, which she retained for more than a decade, earned her 98 first places in the World Cup, 16 gold medals at the annual World and European Championships in all- around competitions and three Olympic victories. From the mid-1990s, Niemann-Stirnemann was in team-internal competition with Claudia Pechstein , who beat her over 5000 meters at the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics. After a two-year baby break, when she returned to international competition in 2003, she was unable to build on her previous winning streak and ended her career in autumn 2005 because of persistent back problems. Since then she has been working as a trainer, mainly in the German youth sector.

Niemann-Stirnemann, whose successes were primarily attributed to their strength of will and their training discipline, received great recognition in Germany and internationally. From 1995 to 1997 she was the first woman to receive the Oscar Mathisen Memorial Trophy, known as the ice cream Oscar , three times in a row . She was the namesake of the ice speed skating rink at the Erfurt ice sports center, which opened in 2001 as the Gunda-Niemann-Stirnemann-Halle . In 2019 she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports as the first female speed skater .

Athletic career

Started in athletics, switched to speed skating and made Olympic debut (until 1988)

Portrait photo (undated)

In her childhood and early youth in Sondershausen , Gunda Kleemann practiced various sports in parallel, including cycling, swimming and table tennis. In 1981 she switched to the children's and youth sports school (KJS) in Erfurt as a track and field athlete - her original application as a volleyball player had been rejected on the grounds that she was short. She won several medals in running disciplines in her respective age group in national competitions, including the title of GDR champion in the 300 meter hurdles in 1982. In the summer of 1983, the head of her training group certified that she had reached her physical performance limits and that she could no longer be promoted as a track and field athlete. In order to be able to stay at the sports school, Kleemann switched to speed skating, although she was unfamiliar with this sport and first had to learn to skate on. At first she started for the SC Turbine Erfurt , from 1989 for the ESC Erfurt, which emerged from its ice skating division . After taking first place in both the 1000m and 3000m at the Children's and Youth Spartakiade in 1985 , she joined the group supervised by Gabriele Fuß , to which Heike Schalling and Constanze Scandolo, two athletes from the GDR national team, belonged. In her biography, Kleemann later expressed her admiration for the “impressive technique” of Schalling and Scandolo. She looked up to her fellow travelers while using “fighting spirit” to compensate for her own technical deficiencies in gliding.

On November 22, 1987, the 21-year-old Kleemann made her debut in the speed skating World Cup . The East German athletes around three-time Olympic champion Karin Kania shaped the races with triple victories. Kleemann ran over 3000 meters to second place: In a direct duel with Kania, she was just under a second behind the winner. In retrospect, she described this competition as her breakthrough. One month later Kleemann was GDR champion for the first time over the same distance ahead of the 3000-meter Olympic champion Andrea Ehrig . At the subsequent European all-around championships , her first participation in a major international event, she won the silver medal behind Ehrig. She ran the second fastest time on all of the women's four-way combat from the 500-meter to the 5000-meter distance and qualified for the GDR Olympic squad for the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary. There she competed in two races and placed seventh both over 1500 meters and over 5000 meters. On the longer route she preferred, she crashed on the fourth lap due to a technical error and finished the competition almost 13 seconds behind the podium. After the Olympic season, Kania and Ehrig, who had won other medals in Calgary, announced their retirement from competitive sports. Kleemann's supervisor Gabriele Fuß was appointed as the new coach of the significantly younger national team.

First all-around title and Olympic victories (1988 to 1994)

Still as Gunda Kleemann at the Speed ​​Skating World Cup on November 25, 1989 in Berlin

Kleemann (after their first wedding in 1991: Niemann) was one of the world's leading speed skaters from winter 1988/89. At the beginning of the season she celebrated the first two World Cup victories of her career in East Berlin over 1500 meters and 3000 meters . In January 1989 she won her first international title at the European all- around championships in the western part of the city . World champion in four-fight was Kleemann 1991 in their third World Cup finals: in 1989 their Erfurt teammate Constanze Moser beat (former Scandolo) it by just one point in 1990 disqualified the judges because your fellow-traveler Wang Xiuli had hampered when changing lanes. With these exceptions, Niemann won all major all-round events up to the 1992 Winter Olympics. She achieved her best results in the medium and long distances from 1500 meters - here she also triumphed in a large part of the World Cup races and at the end of the season was number one in the overall ranking. Over 3000 meters, she set a world record for the first time on December 9, 1990 as part of the World Cup in Calgary with a time of 4: 10.80 minutes , which she held for more than ten years with a brief interruption.

In the course of reunification , Niemann started for the all-German team from the 1990/91 season, which was under the direction of the German Speed ​​Skating Association (DESG). In terms of personnel, East German athletes shaped the united team: All eight speed skaters in the German line-up for the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville grew up in the GDR. Gabriele Fuß was also taken over by DESG as national coach. At the 1992 Olympics, Niemann won the gold medal in both the 3000 and 5000 meters ahead of Heike Warnicke (formerly Schalling) - the 3000 meter success meant the first gold medal of a German athlete after reunification - and also the silver medal behind Jacqueline Börner in 1500 Meter race. As a result, Niemann won the all- around world championships in 1992 and 1993 as well as the European Championship in 1994 . At the European Championships in 1993, she fell over 500 meters and was unable to catch up with the resulting deficit despite distance victories over 3000 meters and 5000 meters; the World Championships in February 1994 she skipped.

Before the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Niemann won all seven pre-Olympic races in which she participated in the 1993/94 World Cup and improved the 5000-meter world record on December 6, 1993 in the Vikingskipet of Hamar - the venue for the Olympic speed skating competitions . Journalists credited her with the role of "the clear favorite of the games". Niemann later called the pressure of expectations "incredibly high". In the opening race over 3000 meters, she fell over a lane marking in the second lap and carried her fellow traveler Seiko Hashimoto with her. Although she reached the goal, she was disqualified (because the competition ended on the wrong track). A few days later, she won the bronze medal over 1500 meters in the victory of Austrian Emese Hunyady . In the final 5000 meter race, Niemann, second placed, missed the time of 7: 14.37 minutes set by her team colleague Claudia Pechstein by half a second and was thus beaten for the first time since her Olympic debut in 1988 over the longest distance. After the Olympic Games, Niemann ended the winter with two world records over 5000 meters and 10,000 meters on the Olympic Oval in Calgary. After the season, she separated from her long-time trainer Gabi Fuß and joined Stephan Gneupel 's group, which also trained in Thuringia . In retrospect, Niemann justified the change by stating that she needed “new momentum” and that the results of Lillehammer were decisive.

Further successes and switch to folding ice skates (1994 to 2000)

Opened folding ice skate

During the six years in which Niemann (after their second marriage in 1997: Niemann-Stirnemann) trained under Stephan Gneupel's guidance, she won two more European titles and five more world titles in all-around competitions. From 1996 wore International Skating Union ( International Skating Union ; ISU) also annually Single Distance World Championships from where Niemann-Stirnemann won by 2001 over 3000 meters and 5000 meters ten of twelve discharged races and a total of eleven World Cup wins in that time, most title of all speed skaters. In the 1994/95 season alone , Niemann also won 15 World Cup races - one over 1000 meters and all competitions on the three longer distances - and won the all-around title at both the European and World Cup with best times on all four routes. Their lead of four points over the runner-up in the overall four-way competition was roughly equivalent to the gap between second and eighth place.

The Dutch speed skating team competed with folding skates from the beginning of winter 1996/97 . In the first six long-distance World Cup races in November and December 1996, Niemann experienced five defeats by Tonny de Jong , who had never won a World Cup medal and had never been on a World Cup podium. Although Niemann always reached the top three places, she was sometimes more than two seconds behind the Dutchwoman, who also won the 1997 European Championship with three track wins. Without the knowledge and against the will of her home trainer Stephan Gneupel - who primarily saw weakness in form as the reason for Niemann's deficit - she switched to folding shoes herself in training from January 1997 and practiced in Chemnitz together with the long-distance speed skater Frank Dittrich . At the all-around world championships in Nagano in mid-February, Niemann and Claudia Pechstein were again faster than third-placed de Jong. After the season, Niemann underwent knee surgery as a result of cartilage damage that she sustained while surfing in October 1996. In her biography she stated that she ran in pain all winter. She kept the injury to herself in the hope that it would heal on its own. From summer 1997 she got back into training and made up her initial performance deficit by the start of the season: In December 1997 she set a new world record over 3000 meters in Heerenveen.

At the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Niemann-Stirnemann won her third Olympic gold medal in a German triple victory over 3000 meters ahead of Claudia Pechstein and Anni Friesinger . Over 1500 meters and 5000 meters she took silver twice. On the 5000-meter course, she set a new world record in the penultimate pair with 6: 59.65 minutes, which was 3.5 seconds below her own previous record. In the final run, Pechstein improved this time by four hundredths of a second and beat Niemann-Stirnemann for the second time in a row at the Olympics over this distance. On March 28, 1998, Niemann-Stirnemann won back the world record at the individual distance world championships and had a time of 6: 58.63 minutes, four seconds ahead of Pechstein, while third-placed Dutch Carla Zijlstra was more than ten seconds behind.

Last best times, baby break and end of career (2000 to 2005)

In February 2000, Niemann-Stirnemann lost the world championship title in the all-around competition, which she had won in her previous eight World Cups, to Claudia Pechstein. Already at the European Championships in January she was inferior to Anni Friesinger by 26 hundredths of a point. After the season, the now 33-year-old separated from her supervisor Stephan Gneupel and switched to the Chemnitz group of Klaus Ebert , which included the long-distance athletes Frank Dittrich and Jens Boden and with whom she had already run three years earlier during the switch to folding ice skates was. In the winter of 2000/01 she celebrated her World Cup victories 96 to 98, her eighth European title and two successes at the individual distance world championships : On March 9, 2001, she won her 19th World Championship over 5000 meters on the Utah Olympic Oval in Salt Lake City Title and set her 18th world record with a time of 6: 52.44 minutes. Preparing for the Winter Olympics , which took place in the same place a year later, Niemann-Stirnemann broke off in October 2001 after learning of her pregnancy. During the following two-year break from competitions, she worked, among other things, as a co-commentator for ZDF at major speed skating events.

When she returned as an active athlete in autumn 2003, Niemann-Stirnemann qualified as the German champion over 5000 meters - with her 34th national title since 1988 - for the World Cup , where she was able to achieve her last two podium places on this route. At the individual distance world championships in 2004 in Seoul, she finished fourth and fifth on the two longest distances. In the winter of 2004/05 she refrained from all starts because of back problems and on October 27, 2005 at the age of 39, she announced the end of her career at a DESG seminar.

Speed ​​skating trainer (since 2006)

In April 2006, Niemann-Stirnemann began a distance learning course at the Cologne Trainer Academy , which she completed in 2009 with a diploma examination. She then looked after the 17 to 19 year olds in the German junior squad. After the Olympic speed skating competitions in 2014 - in which the German athletes had no medals for the first time in 50 years - Stephan Gneupel retired as national coach. Niemann-Stirnemann followed her former trainer as a supervisor at the Erfurt base. In this role she trained the siblings Stephanie and Patrick Beckert, among others, in the winter of 2014/15 . Patrick Beckert won the bronze medal over 10,000 meters at the 2015 World Championships under Niemann-Stirnemann's guidance . In autumn 2015, DESG President Gerd Heinze declared that Niemann-Stirnemann - who was in the rehabilitation phase at the time after another knee operation - had "no job as a trainer at the Erfurt base", but they were interested in to use them as a talent scout in recruiting young talent. Niemann-Stirnemann finally took over the training management of a junior group to which her daughter Victoria Stirnemann belonged in 2019. In July 2020, DESG appointed her as the training coordinator of the women's national team for team competitions with a view to the 2022 Winter Olympics .

Personal

family

Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann's mother was a sales point manager in a fruit and vegetable shop, her father a trained locksmith. Both parents were athletic athletes and soccer players, respectively. They separated when Gunda Kleemann - the youngest of five siblings, grew up with two brothers and two sisters - was nine years old. After the separation of her parents, she had almost no contact with her father. In an interview with the daily newspaper , Niemann-Stirnemann said in 2018 that she “grew up on her own” and learned early on to set her own goals. She was the only one among her siblings to pursue a sports career. Especially in the early years of her career, however, her family “went everywhere” and “followed everything”.

In April 1991 Gunda Kleemann married the former judoka Detlef Niemann. After the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, she announced the separation from her first husband. She has been living in her second marriage to her Swiss manager Oliver Stirnemann since July 1997. Her daughter Victoria Stirnemann (* 2002) took part in the 2020 Winter Youth Olympic Games as a speed skater .

education and profession

After graduating from the children's and youth sports school in Erfurt, Kleemann trained as a textile seller and worked in an Erfurt youth fashion store. She lost her job after the reunification and the sale of the business by the Treuhandanstalt . In her biography, she stated that at that time she shared "thousands of fears of unemployment". In the early 1990s, the Thuringian Ministry of the Interior gave her a job as a library worker. Niemann-Stirnemann explained that she was able to continue training in her home state and was "covered in the event of illness or injury". In autumn 2001, Der Spiegel reported that the Thuringian Ministry of Finance internally criticized the high costs of this type of athlete support, especially since the athlete was largely released from work. Niemann-Stirnemann's manager and husband then emphasized their advertising effect for the country, which far exceeded their state-paid salary.

In 1991, Niemann conducted her first sponsorship negotiations. After her Olympic victories in 1992, she became more attractive for advertising partners than other speed skaters and, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, was the only German runner in the World Cup who was able to completely fill the admissible advertising space in the following years . Looking back on her career, Niemann-Stirnemann said to the star that she had “earned well” (from the winter of 1995/96 onwards, the ISU also awarded World Cup victories “on a significant scale”), but not financially; that was not possible given the relatively low popularity of speed skating in the 1990s.

Public image and appreciation

Media appearances and attributions

Although speed skating was largely perceived by the German public as a "fringe sport" during Niemann-Stirnemann's active time, the Thuringian woman gained media attention thanks to her continued success and enjoyed a level of awareness of around 90 percent in her home country in the last few years of her career. Among other things, she was twice - in February 1992 and 1998, each time after her Olympic victories - as a guest on the TV show Wetten, dass ..? (where she also appeared as city godmother for Erfurt in 2001). It appeared several times on the title page of Superillu and in 1998 received the Goldene Henne media award in the sport category after public vote. Niemann-Stirnemann was also popular in the Netherlands, where speed skating was much more important. She played a role in the series “Good Neighbors, Bad Neighbors” about the German-Dutch relationship and described their relationship with the venue Heerenveen as a mutual “love”. Niemann-Stirnemann was involved in charitable work as part of the “Children helping children” initiative for children in need.

Often Niemann-Stirnemann was ascribed an enormous ambition for training. During the 1995/96 season , she underwent arthroscopy on the inner and outer meniscus of the right knee in December , began training the following day and won the European championship in the all-around competition six weeks later. In her biography, Niemann-Stirnemann described the epithet Gunda Gnadenlos, which refers to her “tough training units”, as justified, if not beautiful: she could be “merciless” when training herself, but also toward the group, and demand a constantly high pace. Training in a group should not mean “giving up the claim of being a lone fighter”. At the same time, in a self-description, she named “longing for harmony” as one of her main character traits (alongside openness, honesty and ambition). Observers attested Niemann-Stirnemann an "anything but aesthetic running style" and saw the reason for their success in addition to their physical strength achieved through training discipline in their "iron will". In the last years of her career, Niemann-Stirnemann's adherence to sport was viewed critically: Die Welt quoted her former trainer Gabi Fuß in December 2004 as saying that Niemann-Stirnemann's “heyday” was over and she would no longer keep up; Her resignation in October 2005 - a week after she had rejected speculation as "nonsense" - described Der Tagesspiegel as a "rather unworthy end" for "an unprecedented career".

In-team competition

Claudia Pechstein (here 2018), long-time challenger Niemann-Stirnemann

The tense relationship between Niemann and her teammate Claudia Pechstein, who was five and a half years younger, attracted attention in reporting from the 1994 Winter Olympics . Pechstein had already won the Olympic bronze medal over 5000 meters in 1992, but her victory over the favored Niemann at the Olympic competitions in Hamar in 1994 over this distance came as a surprise to both the reporters and both athletes themselves. In her biography, Niemann described the moment in which she experienced her defeat as a “stab in the heart” and was injured by Pechstein's comments after the victory - Niemann couldn't really lose and her time was up. She also spoke of an "ice age" lasting three years with unkindness on both sides, but which after a discussion had given way to a "relationship of mutual respect". Pechstein, on the other hand, described Niemann-Stirnemann in her biography, published in 2010, as "the most dogged sportswoman [she] has ever met" and spoke of a "permanent rivalry". After the Olympics in 1994, Niemann completely ignored her for six months and - according to Pechstein's impression - viewed every defeat as a personal insult. In the course of time their appearance has become "more grounded"; At the 1998 Olympic Games, Niemann took her second place over 5000 meters “with composure”, to Pechstein's surprise. Pechstein stuck to the statement that Niemann was afraid of failure in decisive moments and that with a better psyche he could win more than three Olympic gold medals. In her own biography, Niemann-Stirnemann described herself as “sensitive” in this regard, and sometimes “a gesture or a word” was enough to unsettle her. However, over time she learned to deal with it.

The athletic competition with Pechstein was the motivation for Niemann to increase her training schedule again in the summer of 1995. As a result, she remained the more successful athlete overall: In November 1999 - after Pechstein's two Olympic victories - René Hofmann ascribed the role of "eternal number one" for the Süddeutsche Zeitung Niemann-Stirnemann. With greater strength and resilience, she is physically superior to Pechstein and "absorbs most of the attention". Pechstein had to come to terms with this situation. Pechstein described the years after her second Olympic victory in 1998 as a protracted "changing of the guard" that ultimately dragged on to Niemann-Stirnemann's baby break. In addition to Pechstein, it was Anni Friesinger , who was five years younger than him , who challenged Niemann-Stirnemann's position from the end of the 1990s and first conquered it at the individual distance World Championships in 1998 over 1500 meters and at the European Championship in 2000 for the first time in all- around competitions. The Bavarian Friesinger criticized the strict training system of the East German groups in 2001, but described Niemann-Stirnemann in an interview in 2002 as “a fascinating person, a nice person to be around”. Before that, Niemann-Stirnemann had stated in her biography that she had “always liked Friesinger with her open manner”. In the early and mid-2000s, public interest in speed skating grew - also as a result of an intense and popular conflict between Pechstein and Friesinger. After her return to the World Cup in 2004 , Der Spiegel attributed Niemann-Stirnemann to the role of the “good-hearted folk mother of the company” in this constellation.

Honors

Name Gunda-Niemann-Stirnemann-Halle at the ice sports center Erfurt

In 1995 - the year in which she won both the European and the world championships in the all-around competition with four track wins each - Niemann was voted ARD Sportswoman of the Year in a Ted poll of TV viewers at the ARD sports gala . In the corresponding vote among sports journalists , she came fourth in the same year and, in 1999, the best result, second behind Steffi Graf . From 1995 to 2000 she received the Thuringian State Sportswoman of the Year award six times in a row . Their International awarded the Oslo Skøiteklub 1995 as the second wife after Bonnie Blair and the first German speed skater, the ice-Oscar -called Oscar Mathisen Memorial Trophy . She also won this award in 1996 and 1997, making her the third person to be honored three times in a row after Ard Schenk and Eric Heiden . As a female counterpart to Heiden, Niemann-Stirnemann was honored as speed skater of the century at the IJsgala in Heerenveen in 1999. From November 1993 until she was replaced by Claudia Pechstein in March 2001, she led the aristocratic calendar as the eternal world best list of speed skating almost continuously.

Lord Mayor Manfred Ruge ( CDU ) granted Niemann-Stirnemann honorary citizenship of the city of Erfurt in 1998 and highlighted her as a “sympathetic and ideal ambassador”. A year later, the Federal Ministry of the Interior decided in favor of the Erfurt site and against Inzell in Bavaria for the construction of a planned covered 400-meter ice rink , which Ruge largely attributed to Niemann-Stirnemann's work. Against the opposition of the SPD and PDS factions - who feared a "personality cult" - the Erfurt city parliament voted in autumn 2001 to name the ice rink after Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann while she was still active. She herself could not understand the controversy and spoke of a "[t] oll [en]" feeling to see her name at the ice rink.

As early as 2017, Claudia Pechstein demanded in an article for the Bild newspaper, given Niemann-Stirnemann's track record, her admission to the Hall of Fame of German Sports , which she regarded as overdue and “more than deserved”. In October 2019, the Deutsche Sporthilfe Foundation announced that a jury consisting of previous members had chosen Niemann-Stirnemann for this forum. After the two-time Olympic speed skating champion Erhard Keller , Niemann-Stirnemann was the first female representative of her sport to receive this honor. In the corresponding press release, she was recognized as one of the “most successful speed skaters of all time” and as the “first German-German winter sports star”.

statistics

Balance at major events

winter Olympics

Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann was part of the German squad at four consecutive Winter Games from 1988 to 1998. She took part in eleven competitions in which she won eight medals, including three gold ones.

winter Olympics		1500 m	3000 m	5000 m
year	place
1988	Calgary	7th	-	7th
1992	Albertville	2.	1.	1.
1994	Lillehammer	3.	DSQ 1	2.
1998	Nagano	2.	1.	2.

¹ Niemann fell after 500 meters and in the meantime left the track assigned to her, which is why she was disqualified.

Individual distance world championships

In the individual distance world championships , which took place for the first time in 1996 , Niemann-Stirnemann took part seven times until 2004, competed in sixteen races and won eleven gold medals.

Individual distance world championship		1500 m	3000 m	5000 m
year	place
1996	Hamar	DNS 2	1.	-
1997	Warsaw	1.	1.	1.
1998	Calgary	2.	1.	1.
1999	Heerenveen	2.	1.	1.
2000	Nagano	-	2.	1.
2001	Salt Lake City	-	1.	1.
2004	Seoul	-	5.	4th

² Niemann originally wanted to compete over several distances, but after the 3000-meter race he decided not to start over 1500 meters in order to spare her knee.

All-around world championships

From 1989 to 2001 Niemann-Stirnemann took part in twelve all- around world championships and won eight gold medals. The following table shows their times - and their placements in brackets behind them - on the four individual routes run as well as the total number of points calculated from them after the Samalog and the final placement . The order of the distances corresponds to their order in the program of the all-around world championships; only between 1996 and 1998 were the 1500 meters run before the 3000 meters.

All-around world championship		500 m (in seconds)	3000 m (in minutes)	1500 m (in minutes)	5000 m (in minutes)	Points	space
year	place
1989	Lake Placid	44.19 (10)	4: 41.72 (4)	2: 11.16 (3)	7: 58.23 (1)	182.686	2.
1990	Calgary	41.45 (5)	4: 20.15 (2)	DSQ 3	-	84,808	NC
1991	Hamar	42.47 (4)	4: 32.00 (1)	2: 09.45 (1)	7: 43.10 (1)	177.263	1.
1992	Heerenveen	41.90 (7)	4: 22.30 (1)	2: 05.02 (2)	7: 23.62 (1)	171.651	1.
1993	Berlin	41.80 (6)	4: 23.15 (1)	2: 06.60 (1)	7: 25.83 (1)	172.441	1.
1995	Tynset	41.00 (1)	4: 24.72 (1)	2: 03.86 (1)	7: 28.70 (1)	171.276	1.
1996	Inzell	41.62 (6)	4: 22.59 (1)	2: 06.13 (1)	7: 38.34 (2)	173.272	1.
1997	Nagano	40.79 (2)	4: 10.40 (1)	2: 00.51 (1)	7: 10.15 (1)	165.708	1.
1998	Heerenveen	40.57 (9)	4: 05.08 (1)	1: 58.69 (1)	7: 00.41 (1)	163.020	1.
1999	Hamar	40.34 (7)	4: 02.01 (1)	1: 57.24 (2)	6: 57.24 (1)	161.479	1.
2000	Milwaukee	40.43 (8)	4: 06.83 (2)	2: 00.62 (3)	7: 02.11 (1)	163.985	2.
2001	Budapest	42.01 (17)	DSQ 4	DNS	-	42.010	NC

³Kleemann was disqualified because Wang Xiuli was disabled when changing lanes.

^4th Niemann-Stirnemann forgot to switch from the outside to the inside lane, was disqualified and did not take part in the following competition.

All-around European Championships

From 1988 to 2001 Niemann-Stirnemann took part in thirteen all- around European championships and won eight gold medals. The following table shows their times - and their placements in brackets behind them - on the four individual routes run as well as the resulting total number of points after the Samalog and the final placement . The order of the distances in the EM program changed several times (the 1500 meters were run from 1991 to 1999 and before the 3000 meters in 2001). For the sake of clarity, the usual arrangement in the World Cup program is shown here.

All-around European Championship		500 m (in seconds)	3000 m (in minutes)	1500 m (in minutes)	5000 m (in minutes)	Points	space
year	place
1988	Kongsberg	43.13 (2)	4: 33.92 (2)	2: 13.71 (2)	8: 02.38 (2)	181,594	2.
1989	Berlin	42.85 (5)	4: 25.34 (1)	2: 08.71 (1)	7: 40.29 (1)	176.005	1.
1990	Heerenveen	40.79 (1)	4: 20.32 (1)	2: 05.91 (1)	7: 24.76 (1)	170.622	1.
1991	Sarajevo	42.69 (2)	4: 24.25 (1)	2: 06.07 (1)	7: 31.91 (1)	173.945	1.
1992	Heerenveen	41.51 (3)	4: 17.68 (1)	2: 04.54 (1)	7: 19.29 (1)	169.898	1.
1993	Heerenveen	47.66 (21)	4: 17.43 (1)	2: 04.89 (2)	7: 15.50 (1)	175.745	6th
1994	Hamar	40.99 (3)	4: 12.25 (1)	2: 02.45 (2)	7: 14.35 (1)	167.282	1.
1995	Heerenveen	41.02 (1)	4: 17.54 (1)	2: 02.84 (1)	7: 21.57 (1)	169.046	1.
1996	Heerenveen	41.54 (2)	4: 17.93 (1)	2: 04.04 (2)	7: 23.58 (1)	170.232	1.
1997	Heerenveen	42.04 (7)	4: 17.87 (2)	2: 05.37 (3)	7: 23.45 (3)	171.153	2.
1999	Heerenveen	41.16 (12)	4: 08.40 (1)	2: 01.21 (5)	7: 03.35 (1)	165.298	4th
2000	Hamar	40.78 (11)	4: 06.13 (3)	1: 59.59 (6)	6: 56.84 (1)	163,348	2.
2001	Baselga di Piné	41.68 (15)	4: 08.54 (1)	2: 01.40 (3)	7: 05.67 (1)	166.136	1.

German championships

From 1986 to 2004 Niemann-Stirnemann competed in 17 national single-distance championships and 7 national all-around championships. She won 4 all-around titles and 30 individual distance titles. Her total of 34 titles include 9 GDR championships (up to and including 1990) and 25 championships in reunified Germany .

German Championship (year and place)	500 m 5	1000 m	1500 m	3000 m	5000 m	All-around
1986 Karl-Marx-Stadt	13.	-	22nd	8th.	6th	8th.
1987 Berlin	10.	-	6th	4th	3.	-
1988 Berlin	8th.	5.	3.	1.	1.	-
1989 Berlin	5.	-	1.	1.	1.	1.
1990 Berlin	11.	-	1.	1.	1.	-
1991 Munich	-	-	1.	-	1.	-
1992 Berlin	5.	3.	-	-	1.	-
1993 Berlin / Inzell	3.	-	1.	-	-	DNF
1994 Berlin	5.	-	1.	1.	-	-
1995 Berlin / Inzell	4th	1.	1.	1.	-	1.
1996 Berlin	DNF	1.	1.	1.	-	-
1997 Berlin / Erfurt	DNF	-	1.	1.	-	1.
1998 Berlin	-	-	1.	1.	-	-
1999 Inzell	-	-	1.	1.	-	-
2000 Berlin / Inzell	-	4th	1.	1.	-	DNF
2001 Berlin / Inzell	11.	5.	3.	1.	-	1.
2004 Erfurt	-	-	-	3.	1.	-

⁵ From 1995 the German champion over 500 meters was determined in two races over this distance, the times of which were added.

World Cup balance

Niemann-Stirnemann took part in 159 races of the Speed ​​Skating World Cup between November 22, 1987 and February 29, 2004 , of which she won a total of 98, finished 131 on the podium and 150 in the top ten. From March 1992 to January 1994 she won 21 competitions in a row.

placement	100 m	500 m	1000 m	1500 m	3000 m	5000 m	10,000 m	team	total
1st place			2	39	42	15th			98
2nd place			2	9	11	2			24
3rd place				4th	4th	1			9
Top 10		2	9	59	62	18th			150
Status : end of career

The following table, which can be opened, lists all of Niemann-Stirnemann's 98 World Cup victories and the tracks on which she achieved them.

World records

Niemann-Stirnemann set a total of 19 world records between 1990 and 2001 , 18 of which were officially recognized by the world association ISU. She ran seven best times each on the 3,000-meter and 5,000-meter distance and improved her best four times in the small four-way battle . She ran most of her records on the Calgary, Hamar and Heerenveen routes.

• Discipline: length of the run or the form of the all-around event.
• Time / Points: Elapsed time in minutes or (in all- around competitions) achieved number of points according to the Samalog .
• Date: date of the world record. In the case of world records in the all-around event, the date given corresponds to the last day of the all-around event.
• Location: Ice rink and location of the world record.
• Stock: Duration the record was valid.
• Successor: runner who was the first to break the specified record. In the cases where her own name is given, Niemann-Stirnemann improved her own record.

World records set by Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann

No.	discipline	Time / points	date	place	Duration	Successor
1	3000 meters	4: 10.80	Dec 9, 1990	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	3 years and 106 days	Gunda Niemann
2	5000 meters	7: 13.29	Dec 6, 1993	Vikingskipet (Hamar)	0 years and 110 days	Gunda Niemann
3	Small four-way battle	167.282	Jan. 9, 1994	Vikingskipet (Hamar)	3 years and 38 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
4th	3000 meters	4: 09.32	March 25, 1994	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	3 years and 257 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
5	5000 meters	7: 03.26	March 26, 1994	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	3 years and 331 days	Claudia Pechstein
	10,000 meters	14: 22.60	March 27, 1994	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	11 years and 361 days	Martina Sáblíková
Introduction of the folding ice skate
6th	Small four-way battle	165.708	Feb 16, 1997	M-Wave (Nagano)	1 year and 27 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
7th	3000 meters	4: 07.80	Dec 7, 1997	Thialf (Heerenveen)	0 years and 6 days	Claudia Pechstein
8th	3000 meters	4: 05.08	March 14, 1998	Thialf (Heerenveen)	0 years and 13 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
9	Small four-way battle	163.020	March 15, 1998	Thialf (Heerenveen)	0 years and 329 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
10	3000 meters	4: 01.67	March 27, 1998	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	1 year and 309 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
11	5000 meters	6: 58.63	March 28, 1998	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	0 years and 316 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
12	5000 meters	6: 57.24	Feb 7, 1999	Vikingskipet (Hamar)	0 years and 343 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
13	Small four-way battle	161.479	Feb 7, 1999	Vikingskipet (Hamar)	3 years and 353 days	Cindy classes
14th	5000 meters	6: 56.84	Jan 16, 2000	Vikingskipet (Hamar)	0 years and 314 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
15th	3000 meters	4: 00.51	Jan. 30, 2000	Olympic Oval (Calgary)	1 year and 18 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
16	5000 meters	6: 55.34	Nov 25, 2000	Thialf (Heerenveen)	0 years and 105 days	Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann
17th	3000 meters	4: 00.26	Feb 17, 2001	Vikingskipet (Hamar)	0 years and 13 days	Claudia Pechstein
18th	5000 meters	6: 52.44	March 10, 2001	Utah Olympic Oval (Salt Lake City)	0 years and 350 days	Claudia Pechstein

World records over the rarely run 10,000 meter distance are not officially confirmed by the ISU.

literature

• Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want to. Dream career with tears and triumphs . Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-360-00896-1 .
• Antje Bauer: wings on the foot. Ice skates and Olympic medal from Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann (1992) . In: Antje Bauer: Erfurt. Pictures and stories ( = publications of the Erfurt City Archives, Volume 4). Arnstadt 2017, pp. 140–143.
• Short biography about:  Niemann-Stirnemann, Gunda . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Web links

Commons : Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann in the catalog of the German National Library
• www.gunda-niemann.de
• www.gunda-niemann-stirnemann-halle.de
• Statistics on the speed skating news page
• Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Portrait, dates and biography of Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann in the Hall of Fame of German Sports

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. Das Neue Berlin 2000, pp. 26-27.
2. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. Das Neue Berlin 2000, p. 36. "[...] when I told them [journalists] that four years earlier [1983] I could not even skate for domestic use."
3. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. Das Neue Berlin 2000, pp. 34–35.
4. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 35.
5. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 64.
6. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 65.
7. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 69.
8. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 71.
9. ↑ Several media reports cite the reason that Niemann concentrated on the Olympic Games, which began a week later, cf. for example Johan Woldendorp: Emese Hunyady laat zich niet kisten. In: Trouw . February 21, 1994.
10. ↑ ^{a b} Birk Meinhardt: 'I greet you on this occasion'. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 11, 1994, p. 41. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
11. ↑ Gerd Schneider: "Madness - that was my life". In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung . Released October 30, 2005.
12. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 97.
13. ↑ Speed ​​Skating at the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games: Women's 5,000 meters on sports-reference.com. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
14. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 108.
15. ↑ Course result : European Championships 1995 - Women - Small four-way fight on speedskatingnews.info. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
16. ↑ Course result : World Allround Championships 1995 - Women - Small four-way fight on speedskatingnews.info. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
17. ↑ sid: Noise about the folding shoe. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 14, 1997, p. 18. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
18. ↑ dpa: Riddle about Gunda Niemann. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. December 2, 1996, p. 20. Retrieved from Munzinger Online . “National trainer Stephan Gneupel, who is also Gunda Niemann's exercise bike, sees it completely differently: 'Gunda is simply not in the right shape yet. Everything else is a question of psychology '. "
19. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 133.
20. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 138.
21. ↑ Tears and Triumphs. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 16, 2000, p. 42. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
22. ↑ dpa: Comeback after parental leave. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. October 8, 2002. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
23. ↑ Briefly reported. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. December 17, 2004, p. 32. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
24. ↑ René Hofmann: A fire that cannot be tamed. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. October 28, 2005, p. 32. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
25. ↑ Trainer with body and soul. German Olympic Sports Confederation , February 10, 2010, accessed on May 8, 2020.
26. ^ Baptism of fire for trainer Niemann-Stirnemann. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. October 30, 2014. Retrieved May 8, 2020.
27. ↑ dpa: Dispute between Niemann-Stirnemann and DESG without result . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 9, 2015, accessed May 8, 2020.
28. ↑ "Gold-Gunda" turns 50 on sport.de. Released September 6, 2016.
29. ↑ "I find it a great honor". In: Märkische Oderzeitung . October 9, 2019, p. 22. Retrieved via PressReader .
30. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann and Andreas Behr are the new performance managers for the women's and men's teams on desg.de. July 27, 2020.
31. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 45.
32. ↑ ^{a b} Jan Feddersen, Jann-Luca Künssberg: Speed ​​skating world champion on success: "Chewing gum out!" The daily newspaper (taz). April 21, 2018, accessed May 9, 2020.
33. ↑ The sports historian Volker Kluge calls Detlef Niemann a "former GDR judo master" (Volker Kluge: Olympic Winter Games - Die Chronik. Sportverlag, Berlin 1999. p. 678). A third place in the GDR championship in 1984 is noted in the JudoInside database, cf. Profile of Detlef Niemann on judoinside.com. Retrieved May 9, 2020.
34. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. Das Neue Berlin 2000, pp. 139–140.
35. ↑ Wolf-Sören Treusch: In the footsteps of Mama Gunda. Deutschlandfunk culture . March 22, 2020, accessed May 9, 2020.
36. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 71.
37. ^ Victories for Friesinger, trouble for Niemann-Stirnemann. In: The world. November 19, 2001.
38. ↑ As in the GDR . In: Der Spiegel . No. 47 , 2001, p. 18 ( online ).
39. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 72.
40. ↑ Wolfgang Richter: Gunda and the children. In: New Germany. November 28, 1995.
41. ↑ ^{a b} What is ... Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann actually doing? In: Stern. January 7, 2018.
42. ^ Robert Ide: GDR speed skating: The new ice age. In: Der Tagesspiegel. October 6, 2001.
43. ↑ ^{a b} Klaus Blume: "Don't work against the ice, talk to it". In: The world. March 15, 1999.
44. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 160.
45. ↑ Jörg Wenig: "A life day and night for speed skating". In: Der Tagesspiegel. November 29, 1997. "In Holland, speed skating is the number two sport after football [...]" (quote from Tonny de Jong ).
46. ↑ Portrait, dates and biography of Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann in the Hall of Fame of German Sports
47. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. Das Neue Berlin 2000, p. 159. “I love Heerenveen. And I think Heerenveen a bit me. "
48. ↑ Gunda Niemann: Everything revolves around children. In: Der Tagesspiegel. December 22, 2000.
49. ↑ sid: Success after hard work. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 23, 1996, p. 15.
50. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 89.
51. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 176.
52. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann ends her career. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. October 27, 2005.
53. ↑ Markus Burkhardt: "Olympic start would be a miracle". In: The world. December 22, 2004.
54. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann gives up. In: Der Tagesspiegel. October 27, 2005.
55. ↑ dpa: Unleashed Pechstein dethrones Niemann. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. February 26, 1994, since 44. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
56. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 101.
57. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 114.
58. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Of gold and blood. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf 2010, p. 210.
59. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Of gold and blood. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf 2010, p. 216.
60. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Of gold and blood. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf 2010, pp. 210–211.
61. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Of gold and blood. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf 2010, p. 217.
62. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Of gold and blood. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf 2010, p. 212.
63. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. Das Neue Berlin 2000, pp. 113–114.
64. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 113.
65. ↑ René Hofmann: Pechstein and the eternal number one. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 15, 1999, p. 48. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
66. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Of gold and blood. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf 2010, pp. 72–73.
67. ↑ dpa: "Presumptuous". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 12, 2001, p. 41. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
68. ↑ René Hofmann: "It is clear that envy arises". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. January 3, 2002, p. 31. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
69. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 150.
70. ^ Maik Großekathöfer and Gerhard Pfeil: Attacks of the prima donnas . In: Der Spiegel . No. 11 , 2004, p. 146 ( online ).
71. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 120.
72. ^ The athletes of the year 1999. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. December 21, 1999, p. 40. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
73. ↑ Heiden en Niemann schaatsers van de eeuw. In: De Telegraaf . March 17, 1999.
74. ↑ Evert Stenlund: Evolution of Adelskalendern: July 1, 1982 - July 1, 1999 , since July 1, 1999 . Retrieved June 30, 2020.
75. ↑ Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann: I want. The New Berlin 2000, p. 161.
76. ↑ Ernst Podeswa: The namesake. In: Der Tagesspiegel. January 4, 2002.
77. ^ Markus Völker: Erfurt's big daughter. In: The daily newspaper. November 7, 2001.
78. ↑ Claudia Pechstein: Gunda, why haven't you been there long ago? In: image. 4th January 2017.
79. ↑ Three new members for the “Hall of Fame of German Sports”: Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann, Martin Braxenthaler and Walther Tröger. German Sports Aid Foundation . 1st October 2019.
80. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Profile of Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann on speedskatingnews.info. Retrieved May 11, 2020.
81. ↑ dpa: Niemann's world record hunt ends with a fall. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. February 18, 1994, p. 25. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
82. ^ Sid: Two titles in Hamar. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. March 18, 1996, p. 28. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
83. ↑ dpa / sid: Blackout on the gang. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. February 12, 2001, p. 42. Retrieved from Munzinger Online .
84. ↑ ^{a b} Profile of Gunda Niemann-Stirnemann on schaatsstatistieken.nl. Retrieved May 11, 2020.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on July 31, 2020 .