Karin Balzer

Karin Balzer
Karin Balzer at the GDR championships in 1963
nation	Germany German Democratic Republic
birthday	June 5, 1938
place of birth	Magdeburg ,  German Empire
size	171 cm
Weight	64 kg
date of death	17th December 2019
Career
discipline	80-meter hurdles 100-meter hurdles
Best performance	10.5 s, 12.90 s
Trainer	Karl-Heinz Balzer
End of career	1972
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 1 × European championships 3 × 2 × 0 × European Indoor Championships 5 × 0 × 0 × European Cup 2 × 0 × 0 ×
Olympic games gold Tokyo 1964 80 m hurdles bronze Munich 1972 100 m hurdles  European championships silver Belgrade 1962 80 m hurdles gold Budapest 1966 80 m hurdles gold Athens 1969 100 m hurdles gold Helsinki 1971 100 m hurdles silver Helsinki 1971 4 × 100 m  European Indoor Championships gold Prague 1967 50 m hurdles gold Madrid 1968 50 m hurdles gold Belgrade 1969 50 m hurdles gold Vienna 1970 60 m hurdles gold Sofia 1971 60 m hurdles  European Cup gold Kiev 1967 80 m hurdles gold Budapest 1970 100 m hurdles
last change: December 19, 2019

Karin Balzer (born June 5, 1938 in Magdeburg as Karin Richert ; † December 17, 2019 ) was a German athlete who specialized in hurdles .

Athletic career

Karin Balzer at the GDR championships in 1963

Karin Balzer gained her first international experience in 1960 at the Olympic Games in Rome , where she made it to the semifinals in the 80-meter hurdles and was eliminated there with 11.1 seconds. In 1962 she first took part in the European Championships in Belgrade , where she won the silver medal behind the Polish Teresa Ciepły with a new championship and German record of 10.6 seconds . Two years later she again took to the Olympic Games in Tokyo and won there in wind-assisted 10.5 s in the finals the first athletics gold medal for the all-German team and, beating the Pole Ciepły and Pam Kilborn from Australia through. The following year she won the European Championships in Budapest in 10.7 seconds and thus secured the two most important titles that one could win as a track and field athlete at that time. In 1967 she won the European Indoor Games in Prague in 6.9 s over 50 meter hurdles and also won the gold medal over 80 meter hurdles at the European Cup in Kiev in 10.8 s. At the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968 she was the flag bearer of the GDR and reached the final there , in which she had to be content with fifth place in 10.61 s this time. Before that, however, she defended her title at the European Indoor Games in Madrid in 7.03 s and also won the Indoor Games in 1969 in Belgrade in 7.2 s.

In 1969 she was the first woman in the world to run the 100 meter hurdles in under 13.0 seconds and won over this distance at the European Championships in Athens in 13.3 seconds and was fifth in the 100 meter run with a new personal best of 11.8 seconds. and was elected GDR sportswoman of the year in 1971 . In the following year she won the first European Indoor Championships in Vienna in 8.2 seconds in the 60-meter hurdles and also won the European Cup in Budapest in 13.1 seconds over 100 meters. In 1971 she won again at the European Indoor Championships in Sofia in 8.1 s and also defended her title in the 100 meter hurdles at the European Championships in Helsinki with a new championship record of 12.94 s and won as part of the 4 x 100 meter relay The silver medal behind the team from the Federal Republic of Germany in 43.62 seconds. In 1972 she took part in the Olympic Games in Munich for the fourth time and won the bronze medal there in 12.90 s in the final behind her compatriot Annelie Ehrhardt and Valeria Bufanu from Romania. Then she ended her successful career and is one of the most successful hurdlers of all time and was trained by her husband Karl-Heinz Balzer . Together with him she fled to the Federal Republic in 1958 , but returned to the GDR two months after threats from the Ministry for State Security against her family.

Athletic career

Karin Balzer was 1.71 m tall and had a competition weight of 64 kg. She began her career under her maiden name Karin Richert at the BSG unit Magdeburg . In 1956 she moved to BSG Chemie Halle-Leuna . After her brief escape to the Federal Republic of Germany, she trained at SV Phönix Ludwigshafen in 1958 . After returning to the GDR, she started for SC DHfK Leipzig from 1960 to 1961 . From 1962 to 1966 she started for SC Frankfurt and then for SC Leipzig until the end of her career . Karin Balzer achieved her greatest successes as a hurdler, although she was a versatile athlete. In 1962 she was the second best female pentathlete in the world. With her best performance in the pentathlon she occupies fourth place on the all-time world best list. In 1966 Karin Balzer wanted to switch to the 200 meters , as her development over 80 meter hurdles stagnated due to the short hurdle distances. However, since the hurdle distance was to be changed to 100 meter hurdles , it stayed with the hurdles and ran an unofficial world record over 100 meter hurdles in 13.7 s in a test competition on July 19, 1967.

Including the world best indoor performances and the times on the yard courses, Karin Balzer set a total of 37 world best performances. She set seven world records over the 60, 80 and 100 meter hurdles. No other hurdler can look back on a comparable number of world best times. Balzer is the only athlete who has set world records over the two distances of 80 and 100 meter hurdles. Karin Balzer has been champion of the GDR eleven times. Seven titles were in the hurdles sprint, two in the pentathlon and one title each in the long jump and the 200-meter run.

Personal best

Source: Performance development from 1955 to 1972 on Karin Balzer's website

discipline	power	date	place
60 m hurdles	8.0 s	3rd February 1971	Hall
80 m hurdles	10.5 s	May 23, 1964	Leipzig
100 m hurdles	12.6 s	July 31, 1971	Berlin
100 m hurdles (fully electric)	12.90 s	September 8, 1972	Munich
100 m	11.3 s	June 11, 1969	Hall
200 m	23.4 s	May 24, 1964	Leipzig
Long jump	6.20 m	May 23, 1964	Leipzig
Pentathlon	4790 points	23/24 May 1964	Leipzig

Private

Karin Richert initially completed an apprenticeship as a chemical specialist at the company vocational school "Heinz Kapelle" by Fahlberg-List in Magdeburg- Westerhüsen until 1955 . She later studied sports science and became a qualified sports teacher.

Karin Richert and her trainer, partner and later husband Karl-Heinz Balzer did not agree with their predetermined career in the GDR state sport and their planned delegation to SC Dynamo. On July 21, 1958, they both fled via West Berlin to Ludwigshafen am Rhein in the Federal Republic. By evaluating Stasi files in 2003, it was possible to prove that their return to the GDR two months later was not voluntary or even “remorseful” as presented by the SED propaganda. Rather, after her flight from the GDR , Karin Richert was visited by the State Security accompanied by her father and forced to return with threats against her family who had remained in the GDR. She was banned from competitions for one year and observed by unofficial employees of the MfS in the years to come ; her coach Karl-Heinz Balzer was not allowed to accompany her to international competitions until 1966.

Karin Balzer was the mother of two sons, Andreas (* October 7, 1965; † September 7, 1972 (traffic accident)) and Falk Balzer (* December 14, 1973), who was also a successful hurdler (World Cup winner, European runner-up, holder of the German indoor record ) before he was banned from competition for two years (2001-2003) for a doping offense. From 1973 to 1976 she worked as a trainer. Her training group included Kerstin Knabe and Silvia Fröhlich , who became Olympic champion in rowing in 1980. When she and her husband refused to administer doping substances to their athletes, she was forcibly transferred from Leipzig to Dresden in 1976. Your training group has been disbanded. She was no longer allowed to work as a trainer. She got a job as a physical education teacher.

After the fall of the Wall in 1989, Karin Balzer initially worked as a lecturer in social education from 1990 to 1993. From 1997 Karin Balzer worked again as an athletics trainer. Among other things, the 1964 Olympic champion looked after her son Falk and Anja Rücker , who became vice world champion over 400 meters in 1999 . In 2006 she became chairman and trainer at the RBA Chemnitz . In 2007 she resigned from the chair due to severe health problems in her husband.

Karin Balzer died on December 17, 2019 after a brief illness at the age of 81.

Awards (selection)

• 1964: Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
• 1971: Star of Friendship between Nations in silver
• 1972: Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold

literature

• Klaus Gallinat, Olaf W. Reimann:  Balzer, Karin . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Karin Balzer  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Karin Balzer in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Karin Balzer in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Karin Balzer's website
• Karin Balzer in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Change of page - GDR top athletes on the run ( Memento from April 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Jutta Braun: Athletes between East and West. In: bpb.de. Federal Agency for Civic Education , July 7, 2008, accessed on December 19, 2019 . 
3. ↑ 40 years - 615 athletes. In: swp.de. Südwest Presse , February 6, 2014, accessed December 19, 2019 . 
4. ^ Performance development in 1967. In: karinbalzer.de. Retrieved December 19, 2019 . 
5. ↑ Chronological listing of the best achievements in each year . karinbalzer.de. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
6. ↑ Herbert Rasenberger : From the sweet beginning to the bitter end, 110 years of Fahlberg List in Magdeburg . 1st edition. Harry Ziethen Verlag, Oschersleben 2009, ISBN 978-3-938380-06-2 , p. 86 .
7. ↑ Portrait of Karin Balzer on ZOV Sport Verräter - Top athletes on the run ( Memento from October 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
8. ↑ Republic flight 1958 on the website of Karin Balzer. In: karinbalzer.de. Retrieved December 19, 2019 . 
9. ↑ 1964 Olympic 80m hurdles champion Balzer dies. In: worldathletics.org. World Athletics , December 18, 2019, accessed December 19, 2019 .