Helli Sengstschmid

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Helene "Helli" Sengstschmid-Tunner (born February 21, 1944 in Vienna ) is a former Austrian figure skater who started in a single run for the Cottage Engelmann Verein Wien. Your trainers were Mr. Steiner, Mrs. Appeltauer, Mr. Wenninger and the legendary Karl Schäfer .

Career

Helli Sengstschmid ran at the same time as her compatriot Regine Heitzer and the Dutch runner Sjoukje Dijkstra , with whom she is still in contact today, as well as the multiple award-winning Soviet figure skating couple Protopopov from Saint Petersburg . At Austrian championships she always had to settle for second or third place behind Regine Heitzer, although she was practically always rated as the best free skier. At the age of 15 she was invited by her trainer Karl Schäfer to training in America (New York and Lake Placid) for six months and lived there with and with the Schäfer family.

At the European Championships in 1959/60, with an outstanding performance in the freestyle, she managed to move up from 12th place after compulsory to sixth place overall. She was the first woman ever to jump a triple salchow . At the European Championships in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965 (in Moscow) she always took fourth place, at all World Championships between 1962 and 1965, with placings between sixth and eighth place, she was always in the top ten. At the Universiaden 1964/65 and 1968/69 she came second despite the break in between (birth of her daughter Sabine 1966). At the Olympic Games in Innsbruck in 1964 she was in 18th place after the compulsory competition and finally reached ninth place overall with the third-best freestyle.

In addition to sport, she did her Abitur (Matura) before studying sport and English.

In 1965 she took part in the Semperit Rally with her future husband, Peter Tunner, and married that same year, which meant the end of her sporting career for the time being. Since then she has lived in Innsbruck, where she gave birth to her daughter Sabine in 1966.

For many years she worked as a trainer at the UEK Innsbruck and worked as a secondary school teacher for English and gymnastics. She has been retired since 2004, a widow since 2012 and dedicates herself to her hobbies such as skiing, painting, swimming and traveling.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Official report on the Olympic Winter Games 1964 (PDF; 22.2 MB)
personal data
SURNAME Sengstschmid, Helli
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sengstschmid-Tunner, Helene; Sengstschmid-Tunner, Helli (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian figure skater
DATE OF BIRTH February 21, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna