Herbert Höfl

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Herbert Höfl Speed ​​skating
nation GermanyGermany Germany
birthday March 1, 1941
place of birth Munich
job Sports Marketing Manager
Career
Trainer Thormod Moum
Pers. Best times 500 m - 40.3 sec.
1000 m - 1: 22.5 min.
1500 m - 2: 08.0 min.
status resigned
 

Herbert Höfl (born March 1, 1941 in Munich ) is a former German speed skater . Höfl took part in the Olympic Games twice - in 1964 and 1968 - and was national trainer for the West German speed skating team from 1970 to 1976. During this time, Erhard Keller and Monika Pflug won the Olympic Games in Sapporo in 1972 .

career

Höfl's ​​career as an active speed skater began in 1961. On the natural ice rink in Inzell , Bavaria , he established himself as one of the strongest German runners: behind Günter Traub , he was German runner-up in the all-around competition in 1963 and won the same year on the zoo ice rink in Hamburg's Planten un Blomen park the national championship in small track all-around. In January 1964 he ran the second fastest time on the sprint distance of 500 meters in the all-German Olympic qualifying in Berlin in 43.8 seconds and qualified for the Olympic competitions in Innsbruck both on this route and on the next longer distance, the 1500 meters . In the 44-strong starting field over 500 meters he finished 24th, over 1500 meters he was 26th out of 54 participants and thus the second best athlete of the German team on both routes.

In the further course of his career, Höfl experienced the expansion of Inzell into a German speed skating center. From 1965 the Norwegian Thormod Moum , who was already successful in his home country, trained the national team, in the same year the first artificial ice rink in the country was opened in the Upper Bavarian health resort, which offered much better training opportunities and, in particular, enabled faster times due to the more even ice. In preparation for the 1968 Winter Games, Höfl concentrated primarily on the ice sprint and belonged to a 500-meter special team - among other things, together with the later Olympic champion Erhard Keller , who Höfl considered his "strongest sprint rival [n ] in Germany ”. Höfl succeeded in improving his personal bests several times: In January 1967 he set a new German record in 40.3 seconds, but shortly afterwards he again undercut the cellar. At the Olympic 500 meter competition in Grenoble, which Keller won, Höfl finished eleventh in 41.0 seconds and ended his active career at the end of the season.

After the end of his career, Höfl switched to the team of German speed skaters, initially as Thormod Moum's assistant, and from 1970 as national coach. In doing so, he acquired a reputation as a “systematic” and among other things switched the technique of Erhard Keller, who became sprint world champion in 1971 and defended his Olympic victory a year later. Observers also gave Höfl special credit for the success of Monika Pflug , who also won an Olympic gold medal in Sapporo in 1972 at the age of 17 and stated that she owed her medal above all to her trainer. Later on there was a rift between Pflug and Höfl. After the successes of 1972, the coach received offers from various nations, but remained a German coach for four more years - from 1972 together with the Dutchman Henk van Dijk - before he retired from the sport.

Personal

Höfl passed his state examination as a sports teacher in Munich-Grünwald in 1967, but after his career as an active athlete and trainer pursued a career as a sports marketing manager and worked for the sports goods manufacturer Adidas in Herzogenaurach , where he was also president of the local golf club from 1993 to 2011 was. Höfl has two children, his son Marcus, who also works as a manager, married the skier Maria Riesch in 2011 , who thus became Herbert Höfl's ​​daughter-in-law.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Erhard Keller: 74 steps to the goal. Inzell gave me the chance. Copress-Verlag, Munich 1968. p. 42.
  2. ↑ Herbert Höfl in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  3. ^ Above : How Herbert Höfl makes a gold medal . In: Sport-Illustrierte No. 4, February 17, 1972, pp. 40-41.
  4. ↑ zero to ten . In: Der Spiegel . No. 3 , 1976, p. 104 f . ( online ).
  5. ↑ Karl Morgenstern: Don't be afraid of the professionals . In: German Olympic Society (Hrsg.): Olympic fire . Issue 12, December 1972. pp. 10-11.
  6. ↑ Herbert Höfl stops at infranken.de. Released April 12, 2011. Accessed March 29, 2020.
  7. ↑ Michael Neudecker: A life in the mixed zone on sueddeutsche.de. Released April 16, 2011. Accessed March 29, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Höfl, Herbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German speed skater
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich