Raimund Bethge

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Raimund Bethge (born July 7, 1947 in Schwedt / Oder , Angermünde district ) is a former German athlete , bobsleigh driver and trainer . He was national coach in skeleton and bobsleigh .

Career

Raimund Bethge is a qualified sports teacher and has been active as a track and field athlete for a long time. In 1969 he was GDR champion over 110 meter hurdles and fifth at the European Athletics Championships in Athens in 1969 . He came to bobsleigh late in 1975, following the example of Meinhard Nehmer . After his achievements in athletics had stagnated and he had been injured several times, he moved to Oberhof, as he had done in 1973, and in its bobsleigh. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Innsbruck he was still a substitute for the gold bobsleigh for takers. With him and Hans-Jürgen Gerhardt and Bernhard Germeshausen as other pushers, he won gold in the four-man bobsleigh at the World Championships in St. Moritz in 1977 . The following year the quartet won bronze at the World Championships in Lake Placid . In the singles, Bethge and his pilot Nehmer even won silver.

After a serious bus accident, Bethge had to end his active career. Detlef Richter first took his place in Nehmers Bob , followed shortly after by Bogdan Musiol . Bethge initially became an assistant coach, then finally a club coach in Oberhof and looked after Wolfgang Hoppe , among others . When the sports associations were also merged with the reunification in 1990, Bethge was surprisingly offered the opportunity to become the association's new national coach. Despite some difficulties, Bethge was able to solve the problems with the growing together of the two previously separate organizations, also individually successful. Under his aegis as national coach, the bobsleigh riders won 52 gold, 36 silver and 38 bronze medals, the skeleton pilots seven gold, six silver and nine bronze medals at the Olympic Games, World and European Championships. In addition, there is the world championship title at the 2007 team competition of the Bobsleigh and Skeleton World Championships, which was won again in 2008 and 2009.

Bethge was seriously injured in an accident on November 30, 2005 on the Olympic course in Cesana . The exact background and the question of guilt have not yet been clarified. It was not until the beginning of 2007 that the injuries had healed enough that Bethge was able to enter the bobsleigh runs again.

In 1988 Bethge was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze. In 2006 he was the first to receive the Trainer of the Year award from the German Olympic Sports Confederation . He donated the 10,000 euros to the association's youth work. On July 1, 2010, Bethge retired and was replaced by Christoph Langen . In 2010 he was elected an honorary member of the FIL.

Bethge is half-brother of the marksman Bernhard Hochwald .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eva Pfaff : Interview with Raimund Bethge, national trainer at the Bobsleigh and Sled Association for Germany (BSD) - "DOSB Trainer of the Year 2006". ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 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. In: competitive sport . Vol. 37, 2007, No. 2, p. 50 (online at DOSB, March 29, 2007). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.dosb.de
  2. ↑ Bob: "Help, help, it got me!" In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , November 30, 2005.
  3. ↑ Anno Hecker: "Trainer of the Year". Confidant Raimund Bethge. FAZ , December 10, 2006, archived from the original on June 21, 2015 . ;.
  4. ↑ Bundeswehr gives okay for Langen - Bethge goes. In: Heilbronner Voice , June 9, 2010 (DPA notification).
personal data
SURNAME Bethge, Raimund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German athlete, bobsledder and trainer
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Schwedt / Oder , Angermünde district