Nicole Uphoff

Nicole Uphoff, 1988

Nicole Uphoff-Selke (born January 25, 1967 in Duisburg ) is a former dressage rider . She was one of the most successful German dressage riders and won four Olympic gold medals on the exceptional horse Rembrandt .

Private and professional life

After graduating from high school in 1986, Uphoff trained as a freight forwarder at the Walrhein company in Duisburg. She married in August 2007 and has had the surname Uphoff-Selke ever since. She is a mother of two and runs a marketing company with her husband.

In her previous marriage she was married to the show jumper Otto Becker from 1993 to 1998 . In 2005 and 2009 she supported Angela Merkel's candidacy for chancellor together with other celebrities in newspaper advertisements .

Athletic career

Nicole Uphoff has been active in equestrian sports since she was a teenager. In the year she graduated from school, Uwe Schulten-Baumer took over her training.

At the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul and also at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona , she won the gold medal in dressage in the individual competition and with the German team, both with Rembrandt . With Sir Lenox she won the first final of the Nuremberg Burg Cup in 1992 . In 1993 Uphoff took part in the European Championships with Grand Gilbert and won individual gold with the Grand Prix Freestyle . Nicole Uphoff was awarded the Silver Laurel Leaf for her sporting success .

In 1996 it was the German Olympic Committee for cavalry not for the 1996 Olympic Games of Atlanta nominated, but it came as a defending champion. Rembrandt was injured during the competition, after which Uphoff withdrew him from the competition. In the same year she said goodbye to Rembrandt from the sport.

In 1997 she received the Order of Merit of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia .

After stints at Gestüt Vorwerk in Cappeln, the state training center in Vechta and on Gutshof Glückauf in Hünxe, Nicole Uphoff has been training her horses in an equestrian facility in the Duisburg area since June 2005.

After the birth of her first child, she had the opportunity from 2004 to ride and train several Iberian horses . These include Oteo , with whom she rode up to Grand Prix level again, and Relampago do Retiro , who later started under Hayley Beresford at the 2008 Olympic Games . In 2007 she stopped her riding activities due to her second pregnancy, so the horses were returned to their owners. She justified this in an interview:

“ For 20 years I only lived for tournament sport. ... Now I want to live and enjoy my family. I don't want to leave my children in care to ride. "

In the private sector, Nicole Uphoff still rides. A few weeks after the birth of her second child, she was given a horse with the aim of getting back into competitive sport. However, she refrained from doing this on the grounds that she had lost confidence in top equestrian sport.

She is still connected to equestrian sport through a youth cup in the Rhineland, which has existed since 1991 and for which the company of the Uphoff-Selke family has been the title sponsor for several years. In addition, she is occasionally available as an expert on television, for example at the CHIO Aachen .

Horses

until 1977 Waldfee - Duisburg Homberger Reiterverein

• Rembrandt (* 1977; † 2001), Westphalian Wallach, father: Romadour II, mother's father : Angelo
• Grand Gilbert (* 1982), Rheinischer chestnut gelding, father: lucky clover, mother's father: dilettante
• Sir Lenox (* 1984; † 1998), brown Hanoverian wallach, father: Shogun xx
• Oteo (* 1998), Pura Raza Española gray stallion, father: Binguero
• Relampago do Retiro (* 1997; † 2011), bay Lusitano stallion, father: Luar, mother's father: Argonauta, euthanized in June 2011 due to serious injuries in a traffic accident

successes

• Olympic games
  • Gold medal (team): 1988, 1992
  • Gold medal (individual competition): 1988, 1992

• World championships
  • Gold medal (team): 1990, 1994
  • Gold medal (individual competition): 1990
  • Silver medal (individual competition): 1994

• European championships
  • Gold medal (team): 1989, 1991, 1995
  • Gold medal (individual competition): 1989
  • Silver medal (individual competition): 1991

• German championships
  • Gold medal: 1988, 1989, 1993
  • Silver medal: 1994, 1995
  • Bronze medal: 1996

• European Young Rider Championships
  • Gold medal (team): 1987
  • Gold medal (individual competition): 1987

See also

• List of the most successful summer Olympians

Web links

Commons : Nicole Uphoff  - Collection of Images

• Literature by and about Nicole Uphoff in the catalog of the German National Library
• Nicole Uphoff's website

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dream couple Nicole and Otto: Separation after four years , Berliner Kurier , November 18, 1997
2. ↑ Nicole Uphoff no longer has any sporting dreams: German dressage championships without the four-time gold medal winner , Rheinische Post , June 13, 2000
3. ↑ Merit holders since 1986. State Chancellery of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on March 11, 2017 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Oteo, a dream horse
5. ↑ InRide People: Nicole Uphoff and Andreas Selke  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , InRide edition November 2007, pages 8 ff.  
6. ↑ Riverdance: A prima ballerina as a hobby horse
7. ↑ Excerpt from a home story about Nicole Uphoff , originally in the Reiter Revue International published
8. ↑ Charity
9. ↑ Berti - the freestyle specialist
10. ↑ FEI horse database: Grand Gilbert  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
11. ↑ Sir Lenox, a horse with seven seals
12. ↑ FEI horse database: Sir Lenox  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ FEI horse database: Oteo  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
14. ↑ FEI horse database: Relampago do Retiro  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
15. ^ Accident on L 822: Two million horse euthanized , Soester Anzeiger , June 28, 2011