Steffi Walter

Steffi Walter
Steffi Martin (right) with Ute Oberhoffner at the GDR championships in 1984
nation	GDR
birthday	17th September 1962
place of birth	Schlema ,  GDR
date of death	June 21, 2017
Place of death	Germany
Career
society	SC tractor Oberwiesenthal
Trainer	Franz Schneider, Wilfried Juchert
Medal table
Olympic medals 2 × 0 × 0 × World Cup medals 2 × 0 × 0 × EM medals 0 × 2 × 0 ×
winter Olympics gold 1984 Sarajevo singles gold 1988 Calgary singles  Luge World Championships gold 1983 Lake Placid singles gold 1985 Oberhof singles  European Luge Championships silver 1982 Winterberg singles silver 1986 Hammarstrand singles GDR championships gold 1983 Oberhof singles silver 1985 Oberhof singles silver 1986 Oberhof singles
last change: June 22, 2017

Steffi Walter , née Martin (born September 17, 1962 in Schlema , Aue district , GDR ; † June 21, 2017 ) was a German luge athlete and two-time Olympic champion .

Life

In her hometown of Lauter in the Ore Mountains , Steffi Walter started her athletic career in athletics with SSG Dynamo Lauter in March 1973 . In 1976 she moved to the luge section of SC Traktor Oberwiesenthal . She won the title at the Spartakiade in 1979 and became Junior European Champion in Bludenz in 1981 . She was trained by Franz Schneider and Wilfried Juchert.

At the 1984 Olympic Games in Sarajevo (under her maiden name Martin) and the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary (under her married name Walter), she won the gold medal in sledding. With these two victories at the Olympic Games, she is one of the most successful tobogganers alongside Sylke Otto and Natalie Geisenberger . In 1983 in Lake Placid and 1985 in Oberhof she was world champion, 1984 overall world cup winner.

Walter last lived with her husband and three children in Großdubrau ( district of Bautzen ).

After her career, she studied state and law, first worked in the district administration and later as a physiotherapist . Due to damaged intervertebral discs and wrists as the long-term effects of her competitive sports career, she was retired as an invalid at the age of 45.

She died of cancer in June 2017 at the age of 54.

successes

World Cup victories

singles

No.	date	place	train
1.	Feb 21, 1982	Koenigssee	Combined artificial ice rink at Königssee
2.	Feb. 26, 1984	Koenigssee	Koenigssee artificial ice rink
3.	04th Mar 1984	Oberhof	Oberhof luge track
4th	0Feb. 3, 1985	Hammar Beach	Hammarstrand bobsleigh run
5.	Feb. 24, 1985	Koenigssee	Koenigssee artificial ice rink
6th	Feb 16, 1986	Lake Placid	Olympic bobsleigh track Lake Placid

honors and awards

• Medal Masters of Sports (1982)
• Golden Ring of Honor of the NOC of the GDR (1984)
• Patriotic Order of Merit in Gold (1984, 1986)
• Gold Medal for the Patriotic Order of Merit (1988)
• Medal of Honored Master of Sports in Gold (1983, 1984, 1985, 1988)
• Honorary citizenship of Lauter in the Ore Mountains (1998)

literature

• Volker Kluge : The great lexicon of GDR athletes. The 1000 most successful and popular athletes from the GDR, their successes and biographies. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-348-9 , p. 410.
• Olaf W. Reimann:  Walter, Steffi . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

Commons : Steffi Walter  - Collection of Images

• Steffi Walter in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Steffi Walter-Martin in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary notice , in: Freie Presse , Aue local edition of June 24, 2017, p. 14.
2. ^ Olympic luge champion Steffi Walter-Martin has died. dpa article in the Free Press , June 21, 2017, accessed on June 21, 2017 . 
3. ↑ Sven Geisler: Mourning for Olympic champion . , Sächsische Zeitung, June 21, 2017, accessed on June 22, 2017.
4. ↑ Steffi Walter - The forgotten Olympic champion .  ( 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. Kamenzer Club "GE Lessing" e. V., February 15, 2013, accessed June 22, 2017.  
5. ↑ Two Olympic golds in a row: Ex-luge athlete Steffi Walter looks back on a career: Erzgebirgerin struggles with long-term consequences. (No longer available online.) Free press , formerly in the original ; accessed on June 21, 2017 .  ( 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.    
6. ↑ Sven Geisler: Mourning for Olympic champion . In: Sächsische Zeitung , June 21, 2017, accessed on June 21, 2017.