Irene Schuch

Irene Stechemesser becomes GDR champion in the discus throw in 1956

Irene Schuch (nee Stechemesser ; second marriage to Grieser ; born November 20, 1935 in Lützensommern , Thuringia ) is a German athlete who was one of the best discus throwers in the 1950s, starting for the GDR .

Starting in 1956 under her birth name Stechemesser, she had taken fourth place in the GDR championships in 1955 with 41.92 m. On June 17, 1956, she threw the discus in Jena at 48.95 m, surpassing Gisela Mauermayer's 1936 litter as the first German . At the GDR championships in 1956 she won her only GDR championship title in Erfurt.

From 1957 she started as Irene Schuch. After a second place at the GDR championships in 1958 behind Doris Müller , both were able to qualify together with the West German Kriemhild Hausmann for the all-German team that competed at the European championships in Stockholm in 1958 . Hausmann was third with 50.99 m, Schuch fifth with 49.94 m, ahead of Müller in sixth.

In 1959 Irene Schuch moved from SC Motor Jena to SC DHfK Leipzig . On June 14, 1959, she exceeded Doris Müller's GDR record in Leipzig with 52.62 m. A week later it increased in Slatynani, CSSR , to 55.01 m and thus exceeded Hausmann's all-German record by 1.12 meters. At the student games of the Eastern Bloc, the UIE Sports Weeks, she took third place in the discus throw and fourth place in the shot put. At the GDR championships she was second with the disc and third with the ball.

In 1960 Schuch was once again second in the GDR championships behind Doris Müller, both of whom drove to the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome with Kriemhild Hausmann . Müller failed in the qualification, Grieser was only ninth in the preliminary fight with 49.86 m, after finishing second in the qualification with 52.22 m. With the qualification distance she would have finished fourth, Olympic champion was Nina Ponomarjowa with 55.10 m, nine centimeters over Irene Schuch's personal best.

On July 27, 1962 she married the discus thrower Manfred Grieser . As Irene Grieser, she reached her last championship placement in 1965 with third place in the discus throw. After 1960 she could no longer qualify for international competitions. Irene Schuch had a competition weight of 78 kg with a height of 1.72 m.

literature

• Klaus Amrhein: Biographical manual on the history of German athletics 1898–2005. 2 volumes. Darmstadt 2005.
• Fritz Steinmetz , Manfred Grieser : German records. Development from 1898 to 1991. Kassel 1992.

Web links

Commons : Irene Schuch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files