Horst Schönau

Horst Schönau and Harald Seifert become GDR champions in the two-man bobsleigh in 1977

Horst Schönau (born April 2, 1949 in Waltershausen ) is a former German bobsleigh world champion who competed for the GDR .

Horst Schönau began his career in 1965 on the Friedrichrodaer Spießbergbahn as a luge rider . With a competition weight of 75 kilograms, he was one of the lightest single-seaters there. At the 1973 World Luge Championships in Oberhof , he finished eighth in the single-seater. After that, Schönau switched to bobsleigh and ASK Vorwärts Oberhof . He drove first with Horst Bernhardt , later with Raimund Bethge . At the 1976 Olympic Games in Innsbruck, he and Bethge took seventh place in the two-man bobsleigh . In the four-man bobsleigh , Schönau, Bernhardt, Harald Seifert and Bethge finished fourth. Bethge then switched to Meinhard Nehmer's bob, and Bogdan Musiol took his place in Schönau's bob. At the 1978 World Bobsleigh Championship in Lake Placid, Schönau, Bernhardt, Seifert and Musiol won the title after Schönau and Seifert had previously become European champions in the two-man bobsleigh. In the four-man bobsleigh, Schönau took third place at the European Championships in 1978 and 1979.

The 1980 Olympic Games took place in Lake Placid, where Schönau competed with a new crew. Schönau, Roland Wetzig , Detlef Richter and Andreas Kirchner together won the bronze medal. In 1981, Schönau and Kirchner won the world championship silver in the two-man bobsleigh behind Bernhard Germeshausen's bobsleigh ; At the European Championships, Schönau took second place in the four-man bobsleigh in 1981, and in 1982 he and Andreas Kirchner won silver in the two-man bobsleigh. Horst Schönau was GDR champion in the two-man bobsleigh from 1976 to 1979 and from 1981 to 1983.

The trained locksmith achieved the rank of first lieutenant with the NVA and after his career worked at ASK Oberhof. After the fall of the Wall , he worked in the water industry in his home town of Waltershausen.

literature

• Volker Kluge : The great lexicon of GDR athletes. The 1000 most successful and popular athletes from the GDR, their successes and biographies. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-348-9 , pp. 345–346.

Web links

• Horst Schönau in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ European Championships from 1978 ( Memento of the original from February 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 30, 2009