Kurt Oppelt

Kurt Oppelt
nation	Austria
birthday	March 18, 1932
place of birth	Vienna, Austria
date of death	16th September 2015
Place of death	near Orlando, Florida, United States
Career
discipline	Pair skating
Partner	Sissy black
society	EK Engelmann
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 1 × 1 × 1 × EM medals 1 × 1 × 1 ×
winter Olympics gold Cortina d'Ampezzo 1956 Couples  World figure skating championships bronze Oslo 1954 Couples silver Vienna 1955 Couples gold Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1956 Couples  European figure skating championships bronze Dortmund 1953 Couples silver Bolzano 1954 Couples gold Paris 1956 Couples

Kurt Oppelt (born March 18, 1932 in Vienna , † September 16, 2015 near Orlando , Florida , United States ) was an Austrian figure skater who started in single and pair skating .

Life

Oppelt began his career as a single runner. In 1951 and 1952 he was third at the Austrian championships and in 1953 runner-up. At the Olympic Games in 1952 , he finished eleventh. He was eleventh in his only single World Championship participation in the following year. At the European Championship in 1953 he had to withdraw.

In pair skating, Oppelt competed with Sissy Schwarz . They were Austrian champions from 1952 to 1956 . In 1952 they made their international debut as a couple. They finished seventh at both the European and World Championships , and they finished ninth at the Oslo Olympic Games . The following year they won their first medal with bronze at the European Championships behind Britons Jennifer and John Nicks and Hungarians Marianna and László Nagy . They finished sixth at the World Cup . In 1954 Oppelt and Schwarz were runner-up in Bolzano behind the Swiss Silvia and Michel Grandjean and won their first world championship medal in Oslo with bronze behind the Canadians Frances Dafoe and Norris Bowden and the grand jeans. In 1955 they did not take part in the European Championship. At the world championship they were very tightly defeated by Canadians Dafoe and Bowden and thus became vice world champions. The year 1956 marked the culmination of the Austrian couple's career. They were in Paris European Championship , in Garmisch-Partenkirchen World Champion and in Cortina d'Ampezzo Olympic champion . In the summer of 1956 they both switched to the Wiener Eisrevue .

In 1961, Oppelt went to the United States as part of US President John F. Kennedy's physical education plan . There he tried, among other things, to help physically impaired people to make their movements easier by ice skating. Exactly ten years after he left for the United States, Oppelt met his future wife, Cathlyn.

Kurt Oppelt died on September 16, 2015 at the age of 83 in his adopted US home.

Results

Single run

Competition / year	1951	1952	1953
winter Olympics		11.
World championships			11.
European championships			Z
Austrian championships	3.	3.	2.

• Z = withdrawn

Pair skating

(with Sissy Schwarz )

Competition / year	1952	1953	1954	1955	1956
winter Olympics	9.				1.
World championships	7th	6th	3.	2.	1.
European championships	7th	3.	2.		1.
Austrian championships	1.	1.	1.	1.	1.

Awards (excerpt)

• End of January 1957: 2nd place "Sportsman of the year 1956" together with partner Schwarz
• 1996: Gold Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria

Web links

• Kurt Oppelt in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ^ Olympic champion Kurt Oppelt has passed away. In: Kurier , September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
2. ^ Roman Seeliger, Die Wiener Eisrevue. A dream faded away. Chapter symphony and medals in gold. hpt 1993 ISBN 3-7004-0680-0
3. ^ Olympic champion Kurt Oppelt has passed away. In: Kurier , September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
4. ^ Olympic champion Kurt Oppelt has passed away. In: Kurier , September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
5. ^ Olympic champion Kurt Oppelt has passed away. In: Kurier , September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2015.
6. ↑ Toni Sailer Sportsman of the Year . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 31, 1957, p. 10 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).