Sabine Spitz

Sabine Spitz

Sabine Spitz (March 2018)
To person
Nickname	Bee
Date of birth	27th December 1971 (age 48)
nation	Germany
discipline	Mountain bike
End of career	2019
Most important successes
Olympic games Cross Country 2008 Cross Country 2012 Cross Country 2004 World championships Cross Country 2003 Marathon 2009 European championships Cross-Country 2007, 2008 Marathon 2007, 2015
Last updated: November 30, 2018

Sabine Spitz at a race in La Bresse 2012

Sabine Spitz (born December 27, 1971 in Bad Säckingen ) is a German racing cyclist . She is Olympic champion, two-time world champion, four-time European champion and 20-time German mountain bike champion .

Athletic career

At the age of 22, Sabine Spitz rode a mountain bike race for the first time in 1994. Just one year later, she started for Germany at the Mountain Bike World Championship in Kirchzarten and finished 45th in cross country .

In 2001 she became German Cross Country Champion for the first time and was able to secure this title 13 more times until 2017. There were also four titles in the mountain bike marathon and one in the eliminator sprint .

Spitz celebrated her greatest career success at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing , where she became Olympic champion in cross country after she won the bronze medal in Athens in 2004 . In her third participation in London in 2012 , she won silver.

At mountain bike world and European championships, Spitz achieved numerous podium finishes, including the world championship in cross country in 2003 and in the marathon in 2008 as well as four European championships in cross country (2007, 2008) and in the marathon (2007, 2015). She also won two runs in the Cross Country World Cup .

Spitz also successfully competed in cyclocross races . In 2005 she won the silver medal at the German Championships and the World Championships .

In August 2018, Spitz canceled her participation in the European Championships in Glasgow and the World Championships in Lenzerheide after falling during the World Cup race in Val di Sole . Shortly thereafter, she announced her retirement from the discipline of Cross Country and contested her last Cross Country World Cup on August 26, 2018. She stated that she wanted to continue to compete in marathons. After the German marathon championships in September 2019, in which Sabine Spitz won bronze again, she ended her cycling career.

Commitment and honors

Sabine Spitz is committed to helping disadvantaged young people. As an ambassador for IN VIA Catholic Association for Girls and Women’s Social Work in the Archdiocese of Freiburg e. V. she founded the Sabine Spitz Foundation Fund - for the future of young people . In 2013 she became the UN Decade Ambassador for Biodiversity .

In December 2009 she was awarded the IOC Trophy by the IOC for her consistent anti-doping stance, which this year had the motto “ Sport and the Fight against Doping ” (German: “Sport and the fight against doping”), honored. She also pleaded for criminal prosecution of doping.

Sabine Spitz was honored with the induction into the Hall of Fame of the European cycling association Union Européenne de Cyclisme . In 2003 and 2008 she was voted cyclist of the year .

On December 15, 2019, Spitz was presented with the “ Sparkasse Prize for Role Models in Sport ” from the German Savings Banks and Giro Association (DSGV) in Baden-Baden as part of the ZDF Sportsman of the Year gala .

Successes (selection)

Olympic games

• Cross Country 2008 , Beijing
• Cross Country 2012 , London
• Cross Country 2004 , Athens

World championships

• Cross Country 2003 , Lugano
• Marathon 2009 , Graz-Stattegg
• Cyclocross 2005 , St. Wendel
• Mountain Bike World Championships 2007 , Fort William
• Cross Country 2007 , Verviers
• Cross Country 2008 , Vall di Sole
• Marathon 2008 , Niederdorf
• Marathon 2010 , St. Wendel
• Cross-Country Team Relay 2010 , Mont Saint Anne
• Marathon 2011 , Montebelluna
• Marathon 2014 , Pietermaritzburg
• Marathon 2017 , singing
• Cross-Country 2001 , Vail
• Cross-Country 2002 , Kaprun
• Cross-Country Team Relay 2012 , Saalfelden
• Marathon 2015 , Selva

European championships

• Cross-Country 2007, Goreme
• Marathon 2007, St. Wendel
• Cross-Country 2008, St. Wendel
• Marathon 2015, singing
• Cross-Country 2001, St. Wendel
• Cross-Country 2002, Zurich
• Cross-Country 2004, Waldenbuch
• Cross-Country 2006, Belluno
• Cross-Country 2009, Zoetermeer
• Cross-Country 2012, Moscow
• Marathon 2013, singing
• Cross-Country 2016, Jönköping

German championships

• Cross-Country 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2017
• Marathon 2004, 2005, 2010, 2015,2018
• Eliminator Sprint 2014

World cup race

• Cross Country Vancouver 2002
• Cross Country Andorra 2013

World ranking

• Leadership of UCI world rankings 04/2008–07/2008
• Leadership of the UCI world rankings 07 / 2002-08 / 2003

Web links

Commons : Sabine Spitz  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Sabine Spitz in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Sabine Spitz in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Sabine Spitz - portrait. In: sabine-spitz.com. Retrieved November 30, 2018 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b} dpa: Sabine Spitz “feels the age”. In: FAZ.net . September 6, 2018, accessed November 30, 2018 . 
3. ↑ dpa: Olympic champion Sabine Spitz cancels for mountain bike EM. (No longer available online.) In: handelsblatt.com . August 4, 2018, formerly in the original ; accessed on August 26, 2018 .  ( 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.    
4. ^ Sabine Spitz: End of career in the World Cup. In: mountainbike-magazin.de. August 22, 2018. Retrieved August 26, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Championships and World Cup qualifications. In: bdr-medienservice.de. September 8, 2019, accessed September 8, 2019 . 
6. ↑ The foundation fund supports the work of IN VIA. (PDF; 32 kB) Press information. September 22, 2010. Retrieved August 12, 2012 .  
7. ↑ Prominent ambassadors. (No longer available online.) Un-dekade-biologische-vielfalt.de, archived from the original on February 19, 2015 ; Retrieved February 19, 2015 . 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.  
8. ↑ Anno Hecker: Courageous counter-course of a cyclist. In: FAZ . December 6, 2009, accessed August 12, 2012 .  
9. ↑ Winner of the Sparkasse Prize 2019