Helmut Recknagel

Helmut Recknagel
Recknagel at the Easter ski jumping in Oberwiesenthal
nation	German Democratic Republic
birthday	March 20, 1937
place of birth	Steinbach-Hallenberg ,  German Empire
Career
society	SC Motor Zella-Mehlis
Trainer	Hans Renner
National squad	since 1955
status	resigned
End of career	1964
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 2 × 0 × 2 × National medals 3 × 1 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold 1960 Squaw Valley Large hill  Nordic World Ski Championships bronze 1958 Lahti Large hill gold 1960 Squaw Valley Large hill gold 1962 Zakopane Large hill bronze 1962 Zakopane Normal hill GDR championships silver 1958 Altenberg singles gold 1959 Lauscha singles gold 1962 Schmiedefeld singles gold 1963 Klingenthal singles
Ski jumping world cup / A class jumping
Four Hills Tournament	1. ( 1957/58 , 1958/59 , 1960/61 )

Helmut Recknagel (* 20th March 1937 in Steinbach-Hallenberg ) is a former GDR - ski jumpers . He is considered one of the most successful German athletes in this discipline. He won the Four Hills Tournament three times .

Athletic career

From left: Helmut Recknagel, Harry Glaß and Werner Lesser in Altenberg

Helmut Recknagel at the GDR championship in January 1955 in Oberhof

Recknagel was recruited as a ski jumper by Hans Renner in the summer of 1954 and accepted the offer on the advice of his father. First he was trained in Zella-Mehlis and then in Oberhof . In March 1955 he took part in his first tournament in Oberstdorf in the ski flying week. He finished 27th in this tournament.

Recknagel , who started for SC Motor Zella-Mehlis , celebrated his first major international success on March 3, 1957 at the traditional Holmenkollbakken in Oslo . As a 19-year-old jumper, he was only allowed to start there with a special permit. In thick fog he was the first non-Scandinavian to win on this hill. He regards this as the most important victory of his career.

Recknagel won at the Winter Olympics in the US Squaw Valley , a member of the all-German Olympic Team for the GDR starting, the gold medal with the then usual style, her arms in " Superman stretched -Pose" forward. This made him the first German and even first non-Scandinavian Olympic champion in ski jumping. In the same year he was the first non-Scandinavian to receive the Holmenkollen Medal . In 1962 Recknagel won the ski jumping world championship in Zakopane and was voted GDR athlete of the year . At that time he was obviously using training methods that were only then adopted by other jumpers (especially from other countries), because he trained on plastic mats in the summer. One week after the World Cup, he won the international ski flying week on the Kulm near Tauplitz - Bad Mitterndorf for the fifth time with a personal best of 136 meters. He won the Flugwochen 1958 and 1961 in Oberstdorf and 1957 and 1960 in Planica. In 1959 he was second in the ski flying week on Kulm and in 1963 in Planica fourth in the overall ranking. 1964 Recknagel started again at the Olympic Winter Games in Innsbruck and finished sixth (normal hill) and seven (large hill).

Recknagel also won the prestigious Four Hills Tournament three times (1958, 1959 and 1961) , which only Bjørn Wirkola and Jens Weißflog (four wins) and Janne Ahonen (five wins) achieved after him . In 1959, 1962 and 1963 he also won the GDR championships.

He made his last jump run in March 1964 at the "Free Press" Cup in Oberwiesenthal . Little did he know at the time that this would be his last competition. After a conversation with his trainer Hans Renner, he decided to end his career in May 1964.

Before 1954, Recknagel also played soccer in the youth team of the Steinbach-Hallenberg sports community . But he turned down an offer to play in the top division team of the BSG Turbine Halle , as he preferred to play for 1. FC Kaiserslautern in West Germany.

Professional background

Recknagel was born in Steinbach-Hallenberg as the son of a pliers maker. In the summer of 1951 he learned the trade of toolmaker in Herges-Hallenberg . On August 29, 1953, he received his skilled worker certificate. He was then employed as a measurement technician at the Thuringian ball bearing factory. While he was still active as a ski jumper, he passed the special maturity test at the workers and farmers faculty at the German University of Physical Culture (DHfK) in Leipzig . He then began studying at the DHfK, which he broke off prematurely because he no longer wanted to become a qualified sports teacher or trainer.

Professional career after sports career

After his sports career he began to study veterinary medicine and graduated on March 20, 1970 with the grade “good”. On April 1, 1971, he was licensed as a veterinarian. After compulsory assistants in Gorgast and Berlin , he received his doctorate in 1973 with a pharmacological study on albino rats. Since April 1974 he has been in charge of the veterinary hygiene inspection in the Fürstenwalde district .

From 1970 to 1990 he was a member of the NOK for the GDR , and in 1990 of the NOK for Germany. In this role he was an international jumping judge from 1973 to 1995. On November 1st, 1990 he was released as a hygiene veterinarian in Fürstenwalde and after a long period of unemployment he worked for an insurance company in the western part of Berlin. On October 31, 1996, he opened a medical supply store in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg , which he operated himself until 2009. Helmut Recknagel has been married since 1962; he has a daughter.

Helmut Recknagel was a sports idol in the GDR. B. for Hans-Georg Aschenbach and Jens Weißflog . A quote from him shows how he feels about today's generation of jumpers and their attitude: “When I look into the faces of Hannawald and Schmitt , I don't see any joy. Back then we were the happiest people in the world when we were allowed to jump off the hill. "

In spring 2007 Recknagel celebrated his 70th birthday, on which his autobiography was published. In the same year he also celebrated the 50th anniversary of his success in Oslo. On this occasion, in March he was the guest of honor at the ski jumping at Holmenkollen and presented the ski museum there with the jumping skis with which he achieved his success in 1957.

More Achievements

• Victory on January 9th, 1960 at the international jumping competition in Oberwiesenthal

Hill records

place	country	Expanse	set up on	Record up
Planica	Slovenia	120.0 m ( HS : 140 m)	1957	1957
Planica	Slovenia	124.0 m ( HS : 140 m)	1957	1960
Planica	Slovenia	124.5 m ( HS : 140 m)	1960	1960
Planica	Slovenia	127.5 m ( HS : 140 m)	1960	1966

Honors

Recknagel received the GDR Patriotic Order of Merit several times , including the first time in bronze in 1958, in silver in 1962 and in gold in 1970.

On May 20, 2011, Helmut Recknagel was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports .

On May 20, 2017, the Bad Freienwalder winter sports club renamed its ski jump "Helmut Recknagel" in the presence of the namesake . It is the first ski jumping facility that bears the name of the multiple Olympic champion , world champion and Four Hills Tournament winner.

Autobiography

• A question of attitude . Das Neue Berlin , Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-360-01298-2 . (2nd corrected edition. Das Neue Berlin, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-360-02146-5 )

literature

• Volker Kluge , Olaf W. Reimann:  Recknagel, Helmut . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Joachim Ret: The winner of Squaw Valley . Children's book publisher, Berlin 1970.

Web links

Commons : Helmut Recknagel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Helmut Recknagel in the database of the International Ski Association (English)
• Helmut Recknagel in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Portrait, dates and biography of Helmut Recknagel in the Hall of Fame of German Sports
• Literature by and about Helmut Recknagel in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Helmut Recknagel  in the German Digital Library

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, ISBN 978-3-360-02146-5 , p. 32.
2. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 38.
3. ↑ No ski jumper has won so well . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna February 27, 1962, p. 11 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
4. ↑ Summary of results under the title »In a few lines« . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 25, 1958, p. 8 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
5. ↑ Overview of the GDR championships at www.sport-komplett.de, accessed on January 6, 2013.
6. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 27.
7. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 21.
8. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 15.
9. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 26.
10. ↑ Certificate on the same page
11. ↑ ^{a b} Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 144.
12. ↑ Certificate on: Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 152.
13. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 147 f.
14. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 151 f.
15. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 185.
16. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 190.
17. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 196.
18. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 199.
19. ^ "International jumping in East Germany"; “Sport Zürich”, No. 4 of January 11, 1960, page 3, column 4.
20. ↑ Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012, p. 235.
21. ↑ Celebrated and spied on. In: Taz. May 19, 2011.
22. ^ Foreword to: H. Recknagel: A question of attitude. 2012.
23. ↑ (kth): Ski jumping legend receives title in Märkische Oderzeitung on May 22, 2017, p. 8