Matthias Behr

Matthias Behr medal table
Matthias Behr (2016)
fencing
Germany
Olympic games
	1976 Montreal	Foil team
	1984 Los Angeles	foil
	1984 Los Angeles	Foil team
	1988 Seoul	Foil team
World championships
silver	1973 Gothenburg	Foil team
gold	1977 Buenos Aires	Foil team
bronze	1979 Melbourne	Foil team
bronze	1981 Clermont-Ferrand	Foil team
gold	1983 Vienna	Foil team
silver	1985 Barcelona	Foil team
silver	1986 Sofia	Foil team
silver	1987 Lausanne	foil
gold	1987 Lausanne	Foil team
German championships
gold	1973	foil
gold	1973	Foil team
gold	1974	Foil team
gold	1977	Foil team
gold	1978	Foil team
gold	1979	Foil team
gold	1981	Foil team
gold	1984	Foil team
gold	1985	foil
gold	1985	Foil team
gold	1986	Foil team
gold	1987	Foil team

Matthias Behr (born April 1, 1955 in Tauberbischofsheim ) is a German foil fencer . He is multiple German champion , Olympic champion and three-time world champion.

Life

Interview of the Financial T ('a) ime with Matthias Behr (2016)

Behr started for the Tauberbischofsheim fencing club and attended the Tauberbischofsheim commercial school , where he graduated from the commercial high school in 1975. He is married to the former foil fencer Zita Funkenhauser and has two children with her, Greta and Leandra Behr , who also fights.

During his active time he belonged to a group of foil fencers from the high performance center in Tauberbischofsheim, who dominated their sport nationally and internationally for almost 15 years.

In the middle of his active career, on July 19, 1982, Behr and fencing in general became more of a public interest than sports when a fatal accident occurred at the 1982 World Fencing Championships in Rome: Behr's blade broke and injured the most successful fencer and reigning world champion at the time Vladimir Smirnov fatally in the head. This event led to increased security measures in fencing in the following years; Among other things, the unbreakable maraging blade and more stable safety vests were introduced.

After the end of his career as an active competitive athlete, Behr became head of the part-time boarding school at the Tauberbischofsheim Olympic Training Center . He was one of Emil Beck's close confidants and was his successor for a short time as team leader of the German national fencing team. In November 2009 it was announced that Behr had suffered from severe depression.

Over the years, Behr had tried to contact the widow Emma Smirnova several times without receiving an answer. In 2016, the filmmaker Michael Dittrich managed to establish this contact, and he shot the documentary Matthias Behr - Träume und Trauma eines Foilfechters for Südwestrundfunk . On September 13, 2017, Behr and Emma Smirnova appeared together in the Markus Lanz talk show and discussed the tragic events of 1982.

successes

Juniors

In the junior division, Matthias Behr was successful in two branches of service. He was German junior champion in singles in both men's florets (1972, 1973, 1974 and 1975) and men's epee (1973).

Single successes

• 1973 Gold German fencing championships
• 1984 Silver Olympic Games in Los Angeles
• 1985 Gold German fencing championships
• 1987 Silver World Championships Lausanne

Team successes

• 1973 silver WM Gothenburg
• 1976 Gold Olympic Games Montreal
• 1977 Gold World Championships Buenos Aires
• 1979 Bronze World Championships Melbourne
• 1981 Bronze World Championships Clermont-Ferrand
• 1983 Gold World Cup Vienna
• 1984 Silver Olympic Games in Los Angeles
• 1985 silver World Cup Barcelona
• 1986 Silver World Cup Sofia
• 1987 Gold World Championships in Lausanne
• 1988 Silver Olympic Games Seoul

Awards

• Bearer of the silver bay leaf
• Member of the 1977 team

Works

• Matthias Behr (author), Sibylle Reiter (ed.): Successes, light and shadow , 164 pages, Wiesendanger printing company, Murnau 2015, ISBN 978-3-00-049243-3 .

Web links

Commons : Matthias Behr  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Matthias Behr in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Matthias Behr in an interview. Away from the planche. on schuelerzeitung-tbb.de, Financial T ('a) ime , December 1, 2012.
• History of the World Fencing Championships (men's foil) from sport-komplett.de
• History of the German fencing championships from sport-komplett.de
• Claudia Rey: Accident at the 1982 World Fencing Championships. He didn't want to kill. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung from July 19, 2017.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 75 years of the Tauberbischofsheim Commercial School , StieberDruck GmbH, 113 pages, TBB 1997, p. 49.
2. ↑ Fränkische Nachrichten : 40 years ago passed the Abitur at the flat share . July 17, 2015. Online at www.fnweb.de. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
3. ↑ Christiane Moravetz: One fatal stab and many wounds. FAZ, March 26, 2004, accessed on May 2, 2013 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Olympic fencing champion - "Depression is curable". Die Welt, November 17, 2009, accessed May 2, 2013 . 
5. ^ ^{A b c} Stuttgarter Zeitung : Matthias Behr: The feeling of powerlessness persists even after 30 years . July 9, 2012. Online at www.stuttgarter-zeitung.de. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
6. ↑ The Crown Prince feels booted out. Die Welt, September 24, 2003, accessed May 2, 2013 . 
7. ↑ SWR documentation about the foil fencer Matthias Behr | Sport | SWR Sport. July 16, 2016, accessed May 27, 2019 . 
8. ↑ TV program . swrfernsehen.de. July 17, 2016. Retrieved July 18, 2016.
9. ↑ Matthias Behr: When an Olympic champion accidentally stabs a friend - DIE WELT . welt.de. July 17, 2016. Retrieved July 18, 2016.
10. ↑ Matthias Behr visits Markus Lanz ( Memento of the original from September 14, 2017 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. at zdf.de, accessed on September 14, 2017. 
11. ^ Deutscher Fechter-Bund: German Junior Masters on the DFB website at www.fechten.org, accessed on June 22, 2017.