In 1958, for the first time, a separate evaluation for GDR athletes and GDR athletes took place, and in 1959 the GDR team of the year category was introduced. Up to 1989 a total of 100 titles had been awarded, the majority of which went to track and field athletes, cyclists and swimmers (26, 21 and 17 times, respectively). In the individual evaluations, the cyclists triumphed most often with 16 honors for the men, and the athletes 13 times for the women. In the poll for the GDR team of the year, the footballers won the most frequently with nine honors.
To determine the winners, any number of proposals could be submitted until 1961, which enabled extensive collections of signatures from various fan communities. From 1962 onwards, the Junge Welt submitted around 15 candidates per category, whose names were printed on a ticket over several weeks towards the end of the year. The concept of the GDR athlete survey has been preserved in the new federal states to the present, where newspapers let their readers determine the regional athletes of the year to this day.
In individual sports there were also elections for the outstanding athlete in this sport, so the handball player of the year was honored.
In 1964, footballer Klaus Urbanczyk was the first and only time a representative of a team sport was named GDR Sportsman of the Year.
In 1965, the middle-distance runner Jürgen May was voted athlete of the year. After he fled to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1967, later GDR statistics showed that the runner-up in 1965, footballer Peter Ducke , was the official winner. After the political change of 1989 , a new winner's cup engraved with May's name was made.
With the winning team for the World Trophy at the 42nd International Six-Day Race , in 1967, for the first and only time, representatives of motorsport were honored as GDR athletes of the year.
The GDR athlete Christa Stubnick was named Seliger Sportswoman of the year 1953 in the Federal Republic of Germany. Ingrid Krämer-Gulbin , double Olympic champion in 1960 in diving, was honored as Sportswoman of the Year in 1960 in both German states. As GDR sportswoman of the year 1986, Heike Drechsler won another award for all-German sportswoman of the year in 2000 .
↑ Robert Rosentreter and Günter Simon: Always close to the wind. 40 years of FC Hansa Rostock . Die Werkstatt, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89533-504-5 , p. 27
