Martina Hellmann

Martina Hellmann
Hellmann at the GDR championships in Leipzig (1985)
Full name	Martina Helga Hellmann
nation	German Democratic Republic of Germany
birthday	December 12, 1960
place of birth	Leipzig
size	178 cm
Weight	77 kg
Career
discipline	Discus throw
Best performance	72.92 m
society	SC DHfK Leipzig
status	resigned
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 0 × World championships 2 × 0 × 0 × European championships 0 × 0 × 2 ×
Olympic games gold Seoul 1988 Discus throw  World championships gold Helsinki 1983 Discus throw gold Rome 1987 Discus throw European championships bronze Stuttgart 1986 Discus throw bronze Split 1990 Discus throw

Martina Helga Hellmann , b. Opitz (born December 12, 1960 in Leipzig ) is a former German athlete who was Olympic champion in discus throwing for the GDR in 1988 . In 1983 and 1987 she became world champion .

Life

Martina Opitz was a talented discus thrower at the age of 16. In 1977 she was allowed to take the oath at the opening of the GDR gymnastics and sports festival and the children's and youth spartakiad . In the same summer she set a world record for 16-year-olds with 55.00 m. In 1979 she was third in the GDR championships. The ascent was interrupted by illnesses and injuries until she became world champion in Helsinki in 1983 - surprising for the professional world . She was also first at the 1983 European Cup in London.

She escaped the 1984 Olympic Games through the boycott of the GDR. 1985 Hellmann finished second at the European Cup in Moscow. She won the World Cup , which took place shortly afterwards in Canberra. In 1986 Martina Opitz married Klaus Hellmann, the son of javelin trainer Karl Hellmann from Jena .

In 1986 Martina Hellmann won the bronze medal at the European Championships in Stuttgart. In 1987 Hellmann became world champion for the second time in Rome .

Martina Hellmann 1987

On September 6, 1988 she had to compete in an elimination competition for third place in the GDR at the 1988 Olympic Games against Ilke Wyludda . Hellmann achieved the largest distance ever measured by a discus thrower at 78.14 m in the Berlin Dynamo Stadium. Because it was not an official competition, the litter could not be registered as a world record. The widths of the six litters in detail: 76.92 - 78.14 m - 70.52 - 76.56 - 75.66 - 74.04. In Seoul Hellmann was then Olympic champion with 72.30 m (Olympic record), for which she was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in gold.

In 1989 she became the mother of a daughter. In the following year Hellmann won the bronze medal at the European Championships in Split. In 1991 she finished fourth in her third world championships in Tokyo . After the 1992 Olympics , where she was eliminated in qualifying, she resigned.

Martina Hellmann started for the SC DHfK Leipzig and trained with Rolf Wittenbecher and Bernd Thomas. In her active days, she was 1.78 m tall and weighed 77 kg. After her sports career, the qualified sports scientist headed the sports club BSV AOK Leipzig of the health insurance company AOK . From 2000 to 2003 she was the managing director of the cabaret academixer in Leipzig.

Successes in detail

• 1983, World Championships : 1st place (invalid - 66.42 - 67.76 - 67.22 - 68.74 - 68.94 m )
• 1986, European Championships : 3rd place (59.04 - invalid - 67.68 - 66.80 - 67.56 - 68.26 m )
• 1987, World Championships : 1st place (71.08 - 68.90 - 69.66 - 71.62 m - invalid - 67.86)
• 1988, Olympic Games : 1st place (71.84 - 64.80 - 68.70 - 72.30 m - 69.66 - 67.50)
• 1990, European Championships : 3rd place (invalid - 63.70 - 61.60 - 66.66 m - invalid - 65.86)

literature

• Short biography for:  Hellmann, Martina . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 1. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .
• Klaus Amrhein: Biographical manual on the history of German athletics 1898–2005 . 2 volumes. Darmstadt 2005 published on German Athletics Promotion and Project Society.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neues Deutschland , 12./13. November 1988, p. 4

Web links

Commons : Martina Hellmann  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Martina Hellmann in the database of World Athletics (English)
• Martina Hellmann in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )