Peter Frenkel

Peter Frenkel (2018)

Peter Frenkel (born May 13, 1939 in Eckartsberga , Province of Saxony ) is a German athlete and Olympic champion who was one of the world's best 20 km walkers in the 1960s and 1970s - starting for the GDR . His greatest success is the 1972 Olympic victory in Munich (1:26:43 h). Four years later, at the Olympics in Montréal , he won the bronze medal.

He already took part in the 1968 Olympic Games , where he finished tenth (1:37:21 h). At the European Championships in 1971 he was fourth (1: 27: 52.8 h), at the European Championships in 1974 he gave up the race prematurely.

In 1972, the year he won the Olympics, Peter Frenkel had trained in a vacuum chamber of the GDR airline Interflug , thereby simulating altitude conditions.

During his career he set two world records in 20,000-meter track walking, the first in 1970 (1:25:50 h), the second in 1972 (1:25: 19.4 h; at the same time as Hans-Georg Reimann ).

At the army sports club, Peter Frenkel made it to major in the NVA . He later studied photography and became a well-known sports photographer in the GDR.

From 1991 to 1998 he was Vice President of the Association of German Olympians (GDO). He then became press spokesman for the OSC Potsdam athletics club .

Peter Frenkel started for the ASK Vorwärts Potsdam and trained with Wilhelm Kustak until 1968 and then with Hans-Joachim Pathus (later national walker trainer until 2004). In his playing days he was 1.82 m tall and weighed 76 kg.

Awards (selection)

• 1972 and 1976 - Patriotic Order of Merit in Silver

literature

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

Web links

Commons : Peter Frenkel  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Peter Frenkel in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Documentation Kienbaum - Die Weltmeisterschmiede in der Mark , Mysterious Places series , July 14, 2020, rbb television

Individual evidence

1. ↑ About the honor for the Olympic team of the GDR. Awarded high government awards. Patriotic Order of Merit in silver. In: New Germany . ZEFYS newspaper portal of the Berlin State Library , September 10, 1976, p. 4 , accessed on April 10, 2018 (free registration required).