Kornelia Grummt-Ender

Kornelia Ender
Kornelia Ender at the GDR Swimming Championships in 1974
Personal information
Surname:	Kornelia Grummt-Ender
Nation:	German Democratic Republic
Swimming style (s) :	Freestyle, butterfly
Birthday:	October 25, 1958
Place of birth:	Plauen
Size:	1.72 m
Medal table

Kornelia Ender (* 25. October 1958 in Plauen as Kornelia Ender ) is a German swimmer who for the GDR starting four gold and four silver medals at the Olympic Games won. In 1976 she was the first female swimmer to achieve four victories in an Olympics. In 1972, when she was only 13, she took part in the Olympic Games, making her the youngest German Olympic participant to this day.

Career

Kornelia Ender was at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal Olympic champion over 100m freestyle , 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly and m with the 4 × 100 medley relay . She became the first woman ever to win two finals within just 25 minutes ( 100 m butterfly with equalization of her own world record and 200 m freestyle with improvement of her own world record). She won another silver medal with the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay . Four years earlier at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , she had won silver medals in the 200 m medley , with the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay and with the 4 × 100 m relay. At the age of 13, she was the youngest participant in the final of the swimming competitions in Munich. Between the two Olympic Games she was four times individual world champion, at the 1973 World Championships over 100 m freestyle, 100 m butterfly (also second over 200 layers) and at the 1975 World Championships again over 100 m freestyle and 100 m butterfly as well as second over 200 freestyle .

Kornelia Ender improved the world record for 100 m freestyle ten times between 1973 and the 1976 Olympic Games and held it for the entire period. During this period she also improved the world records 5 × over 100 m butterfly, 4 × over 200 m freestyle, 2 × over 200 m medley and 1 × over 100 back. Outstanding here was a performance at the GDR championships in 1976, where she set world records in 5 disciplines: 100 and 200 m freestyle, 100 m butterfly, 100 m back and 200 m medley.

Kornelia Ender at the GDR championships in 1976.

Kornelia Ender started for the Sportclub Chemie Halle . From 1973 to 1976 she was elected Sportswoman of the Year in the GDR and in 1973 and 1975 European Sportswoman of the Year . She set a total of 23 world records, including being the first woman with a time of less than two minutes on the 200 m freestyle course with 1: 59.26 minutes. At the age of 17, she ended her sporting career, as she said she had already achieved everything in the sporting field and new goals, such as studying, were waiting for her. In 1981 she was inducted into the International Swimming Sports Hall of Fame .

GDR doping

After German reunification it became known that the GDR top athletes were systematically administered illegal performance-enhancing substances by team doctors and coaches . Unlike many other former GDR top swimmers such as Kristin Otto or Dagmar Hase , Kornelia Ender admitted to having been doped on her numerous records, Olympic victories, world and European championships. However, she emphasized that at that time she got the anabolic steroids from her trainers under a different pretext. In 1977 she refused to take Oral-Turinabol , whereupon she was banned from the national team by the top GDR sports official Manfred Ewald . Ender was stripped of her “ World Swimmer of the Year ” award by the US magazine Swimming World .

Private

Kornelia Ender grew up in Bitterfeld. From 1978 to 1984 she was married to the Olympic swimming champion Roland Matthes , with whom she has a daughter. At that time, Ender and Matthes were the “dream couple” in the sports world. After divorcing Matthes, she married the four-man bobsleigh world champion Steffen Grummt in 1984 . They also have a daughter together.

Since the fall of the Wall, the family has lived in Schornsheim near Mainz (as of 2015), where Kornelia Grummt-Ender now works as an independent physiotherapist in her own practice. After her sports career, she first studied medicine, but dropped out prematurely.

At the beginning of 2015 it became known that the Grummt-Ender family had tried unsuccessfully in the summer of 1989 to flee with their two daughters from the GDR via Hungary to the west, where they were caught at the Hungarian border. Her father Heinz Ender († around 2002), a colonel in the NVA , had previously learned of the plan and allegedly betrayed it to the Stasi at the same time . Since the Hungarian authorities did not report to the GDR authorities, but the Ender-Grummt family returned to the GDR from their “vacation”, interrogations and surveillance took place immediately. These had no legal consequences. Nevertheless, on November 1, 1989, the family submitted an application to leave the country. A few days later the wall was open.

Awards (selection)

• 1972: Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze
• 1974: Patriotic Order of Merit in silver
• 1976: Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold
• 1973–1976: Sportswoman of the year in the GDR

See also

• List of the most successful summer Olympians

literature

• Short biography for:  Ender, Kornelia . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Kornelia Grummt-Ender  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Kornelia Grummt-Ender in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Kornelia Grummt-Ender in the International Swimming Hall of Fame (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The phenomenon of GDR women's swimming - the youngest is the best: Kornelia Ender . In: The time . No. 33 , 1973 ( zeit.de [accessed on June 23, 2017]): "The youngest of these fast mermaids is the best: Kornelia Ender from SC Chemie Halle won't be 15 years old until October 25."
2. ↑ n-tv news television: What is actually ...: ... Kornelia Ender? Retrieved September 5, 2016 . 
3. ↑ world champion. In: German Swimming Association. Retrieved April 22, 2020 . 
4. ^ "Collective compulsion to silence" ( Memento from January 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) in the Berliner Zeitung , April 5, 1994; As of May 6, 2009
5. ↑ Women and Steroids - The “Wonder Girls”. ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2008 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. from steroid-abuse.org (English); As of May 6, 2009 
6. ↑ The memory acrobat. In: Focus Online , April 22, 2000; As of May 6, 2009
7. ↑ "Swimmer of the Year": Kristin Otto loses her award. In: Spiegel Online . December 3, 2013, accessed June 9, 2018 . 
8. ↑ n-tv news television: What is actually ...: ... Kornelia Ender? Retrieved September 5, 2016 . 
9. ↑ Honecker's porcelain. In: Der Spiegel, 3/2015 (January 10, 2015)
10. ↑ About the honor for the Olympic team of the GDR. Awarded high government awards. Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold. In: New Germany . ZEFYS newspaper portal of the Berlin State Library , September 10, 1976, p. 4 , accessed on April 10, 2018 (free registration required).