Uwe Unterwalder

Uwe Unterwalder 1976

Uwe Unterwalder (born July 15, 1950 in Berlin ) is a former racing cyclist from the German Democratic Republic . In three Olympic starts, he won two silver medals and finished fourth once.

Athletic career

Unterwalder came to TSC Berlin from the BSG unit Berlin Bear in 1966 , where he trained under the 1960 silver medalist Siegfried Köhler and Rolf Nitzsche . In 1971 Unterwalder won the silver medal in the team pursuit at the UCI-Bahn World Championships together with Thomas Huschke , Heinz Richter and Herbert Richter behind the Italian four-man. The following year, the GDR four-man with the same line-up won the silver medal behind the four-man from the Federal Republic of Germany at the Olympic Games in Munich . In 1974 Herbert Richter, Huschke and Unterwalder together with Klaus-Jürgen Grünke again won world championship silver behind the West German four. In 1975 Grünke, Huschke, Unterwalder and Norbert Dürpisch won bronze at the world championships. At the Olympic Games in Montreal Dürpisch, Huschke, Unterwalder and Matthias Wiegand took fourth place.

Unterwalder won the GDR championship title four times in a row with the TSC Berlin team from 1974 to 1977. At the 1977 World Championships, Unterwalder won his first medal in the single pursuit when he only lost to Norbert Dürpisch in the final. The GDR team won gold for the first time in 1977, but without Unterwalder. A year later, the drivers from the GDR had their greatest success at the World Championships in Munich : Detlef Macha won in a single ahead of Dürpisch and Unterwalder. Only Unterwalder started from these three drivers in the team, he won the world championship title together with Matthias Wiegand, Volker Winkler and Gerald Mortag . After the GDR foursome won the third World Cup title in a row in 1979 without Unterwalder, the pursuers from the GDR were also favorites for the 1980 Olympic Games . In Moscow, however, the team from the Soviet Union won; Mortag, Unterwalder, Wiegand and Winkler received the silver medal. Unterwalder won the "International Two-Team Championship" in 1976 on the Werner-Seelenbinder-Halle track in Berlin with Thomas Huschke (with whom he competed in many races as a partner).

Honors

For his sporting successes at the Summer Olympics in 1972 and 1980 he received the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze in each of these years .

Professional

Unterwalder was a trained offset printer, but after his career worked as a waiter in Berlin. After the fall of the Berlin Wall he became a co-owner of a company for car maintenance, also in Berlin.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Lexicon athletes in the GDR . New Life Publishing House, Berlin 2009 ISBN 978-3-355-01759-6

Web links

Commons : Uwe Unterwalder  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Uwe Unterwalder in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Uwe Unterwalder in the database of the Radsportseiten.net
• World cycling championships in team pursuit
• GDR championships in team pursuit

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} German Cycling Association of the GDR (Ed.): The cyclist . No. 35/1972 . Berlin 1972, p. 1 .