Ulli Wegner

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ulli Wegner, 2013

Hans-Ullrich "Ulli" Wegner (born April 26, 1942 in Stettin ) is a German boxing trainer and former amateur boxer.

Life

Wegner fled Stettin with his family in 1945 and grew up in the German Democratic Republic . It was difficult for his parents in the post-war period to make ends meet. As a child he looked after cows and was a midfielder in football. He went to Rostock to join the Navy and also wanted to strengthen the football team of the local Army Sports Club (ASK). Boxing already fascinated him back then, during the admission process for the soccer team he was approached by a Rostock boxing trainer and won for the ASK boxing relay without ever having played a real boxing match before.

In a total of 176 amateur fights, he boxed from 1961 to 1963 for ASK Vorwärts Rostock , from 1963 to 1964 for SC Turbine Erfurt and from 1964 to the end of his active career for BSG Wismut Gera . As an active, Wegner was able to become district champion several times and celebrated his greatest success in 1970 when he was GDR team champion with Wismut Gera. Wegner later said that he had not achieved the goals he had as a boxer. He did an apprenticeship as a tractor fitter in Penkun in Western Pomerania and graduated as a master craftsman, caught up with the tenth grade and, from the age of 33, studied to become a sports teacher at the Bad Blankenburg sports school. There he acquired a great deal of theoretical knowledge, Wegner said of himself as a coach: "I was not only ambitious, I was eagerly ambitious". He trained himself further on his own with the help of study documents that he received from friends who were studying at the German University of Physical Culture .

Amateur trainer

Immediately after his time as a boxer, he first became Hans Spazierer’s assistant trainer at the BSG in 1971, from which the SG Wismut Gera emerged two years later . Wegner then became head coach. He and other trainers in the GDR (Wegner: "We had excellent instructors, excellent coaches before us in the GDR") had learned a tremendous amount from boxing coaches "from the former Soviet Union," said Wegner. “I have a bit of the Russian school,” he said of himself and emphasized that I always “took something away” from coaches in other sports. Between 1974 and 1979 Wegner then worked as a sighting trainer for the Gera district. From 1979 to 1990 he trained at the Berlin TSC . In the GDR he looked after boxers like Gerd Piesold (1973 third in the GDR bantamweight championship), Eike Walther (1984 GDR middleweight champion) and Jörg Teiche (1985 junior world champion). After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wegner was unemployed for two months because there was no more money in boxing in Gera. In 1991 he took over the position of national coach of the DABV in the federal base of the Berlin Boxing Association and in the same year led Marco Rudolph to win the world title and Sven Ottke to his first European championship. In 1992 Torsten May became Olympic champion under his leadership. In his career as an amateur trainer, Wegner's protégés won around 150 medals at the Olympic Games, World and European Championships and the World Military Championships, including 65 titles. Most recently, Oktay Urkal won silver and Thomas Ulrich a bronze medal in Atlanta in 1996 . One of his biggest defeats as an amateur coach was the performance of Sven Ottke and Markus Beyer at the 1992 Olympics. After the end of the GDR, he was “happy and happy” to have been given the opportunity to work as a national coach. He wanted to repay the association with medals, even if there was no thanks, said Wegner.

Professional trainer

After the amateur world championship in 1995, Klaus-Peter Kohl , owner of the Universum boxing stalls , contacted Wegner, who wanted to look after his athletes at the 1996 Olympic Games. He decided against Kohl's offer. According to his own statement, Wegner always had the urge to go to the Sauerland boxing stable and finally accepted his offer to switch to the professional camp. The change took place after the Olympic Games in Atlanta. “It wasn't about making money. I was covered by the amateurs, ”he later looked back on his course in professional boxing. From then on, Wegner trained up to ten boxers in the Sauerland boxing stable. As a professional trainer, he made Sven Ottke and Markus Beyer, whom he brought into the professional camp , as well as Arthur Abraham , Yoan Pablo Hernández , Cecilia Brækhus and Marco Huck , title holders of a world association. Torsten May, Oktay Urkal , Karo Murat , Marco Huck and Eduard Gutknecht became European champions under his coaching.

At the end of September 2019, he received written notice of termination from the Sauerland boxing stable on December 31 of the same year. A few weeks earlier, Wegner had hinted at the end of his tenure at Sauerland and expressed his hope that he and the boxing stable would one day end their cooperation on a positive note: "I want to go out with a smile." (...) A large part of why I still work at all is Mr. Sauerland, because his name is anchored in boxing, not only in Germany - with world class. I'm afraid of parting with evil here, because it is gradually emerging, "said Wegner at the beginning of September 2019. Wegner described the fact that the written notice of termination was not given by Wilfried Sauerland or one of his two sons involved in the business, but by an employee "Pathetic and tasteless". The newspaper Bild quoted Wilfried Sauerland as saying: “The notice of termination was given in writing on September 30th. But we had discussed the matter with Ulli Wegner long beforehand. ”Sauerland cited financial reasons for the separation. Wegner turned down the offer to look after the boxers as a freelance trainer with a grant from the Sauerland.

Outside of boxing

In his first marriage, Wegner was married to Monika for 18 years until 1985. In 1986 he met the teacher Margret, who became his second wife. He has three children. Wegner has lived with his wife in Berlin-Tegel since 2004 . Since the state elections in September 2006, Ulli Wegner has also been politically active for his residential district of Reinickendorf . For the CDU , he is active in the specialist committee of the district assembly in the sports committee and was involved in the 2011 state election campaign with poster motifs for the CDU. In 2010 Wegner was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon for his services to all-German sport and his social commitment . In 2011, a new sports hall named after Wegner was inaugurated in the city of Usedom . Wegner has been a member of the second division soccer club FC Erzgebirge Aue since March 17, 2014 . On June 17, 2016, he was made honorary citizen of Gera . From May 2018 to April 2019 he was released in the city ​​museum Gera with the special exhibition Ring! Ulli Wegner - boxer, trainer, honorary citizen honored.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ulli Wegner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f g h i ULI WEGNER ON HIS BEGINNING AS A TRAINER, SAUERLAND, SVEN OTTKE, MARKUS BEYER, ARTHUR ABRAHAM UVM. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .
  2. a b c d e Ulli Wegner. In: ULLI WEGNER THE FILM. Retrieved October 22, 2019 (German).
  3. a b Karin Bühler: Background to the termination of Ulli Wegner: Boxing stable Sauerland before the end of Sport1. October 11, 2019, accessed October 21, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Dismissed after the award: boxing trainer Ulli Wegner has to leave after 23 years. October 8, 2019, accessed October 21, 2019 .
  5. a b c What makes a great fighter? Trainer Legend Ulli Wegner talks about boxing. Retrieved October 22, 2019 (German).
  6. ULLI WEGNER: "IT HURTS TO SEE BOXING THAT!" Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  7. ^ GDR championships (part 3). Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  8. ^ GDR championships (part 3). Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  9. All the best! Successful coach Ulli Wegner turns 70 | Boxing - All news, tickets, dates and results from boxing. Retrieved October 22, 2019 (German).
  10. FOCUS Online: Boxing: Ulli Wegner presents autobiography. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .
  11. Peter Wiezorek: After resigning from Sauerland Ulli Wegner (77): I'll keep boxing. In: Berliner Kurier. Retrieved October 22, 2019 .
  12. Coach receives termination: Sauerland terminates cult coach Wegner. In: bild.de. Retrieved October 21, 2019 .
  13. box-news.de: “Ulli Wegner Sporthalle” inaugurated , accessed on June 8, 2011
  14. Prominent newcomer: boxing trainer Ulli Wegner becomes a member of the FCE. fc-erzgebirge.de, March 17, 2014. Archived version at archive.org from March 18, 2014.
  15. Patrick Pleul: Boxing trainer Ulli Wegner is the new honorary citizen of Gera. Ostthüringer Zeitung, June 17, 2016, accessed on April 18, 2017 .
  16. Stadtmuseum Gera opens special exhibition “Free the Ring! Ulli Wegner ”. (PDF) Gera weekly magazine, April 28, 2018, accessed on October 22, 2019 .