Willi Holdorf

Willi Holdorf
Holdorf 1964
nation	Germany
birthday	February 17, 1940
place of birth	Blomesche Wildnis, Germany
size	182 cm
Weight	90 kg
date of death	5th July 2020
Place of death	Achterwehr, Germany
Career
discipline	Decathlon
Medal table
Olympic games 1 × 0 × 0 × German championships 6 × 2 × 3 ×
Olympic games gold Tokyo 1964 Decathlon  German championships silver Düsseldorf 1961 4 × 100 m gold Heilbronn 1961 Decathlon gold Heilbronn 1961 Decathlon team bronze Hamm 1962 Decathlon silver Hamm 1962 Decathlon team gold Hamburg 1962 200 m hurdles bronze Augsburg 1963 200 m hurdles gold Hanover 1963 Decathlon gold Hanover 1963 Decathlon team bronze Karlsruhe 1964 Decathlon gold Karlsruhe 1964 Decathlon team

Willi Holdorf
nation	Germany
birthday	February 17, 1940
date of death	5th July 2020
Career
discipline	Two, four
position	Brakeman, pusher
Medal table
Bob EM 0 × 1 × 0 ×
European bobsleigh championships silver Cervinia 1973 two

Willi Holdorf (2nd from left) wins ahead of Hirscht (1st from right) from Eutin at the Kiel Sports Press Festival in 1965.

Willi Holdorf (born February 17, 1940 in Blomesche Wildnis , Schleswig-Holstein ; † July 5, 2020 in Achterwehr , Schleswig-Holstein) was a German track and field athlete , bobsleigh athlete and trainer . He was Olympic champion in the decathlon in 1964 .

Career

Holdorf first played soccer and handball in his youth . He only found track and field by chance when he won the national sprint championships at the age of 18. Later he worked as a pole vaulter and discus thrower. Through the results lists of the decathlon that he could reach, he was encouraged to try this too. Here he was German junior champion at the age of 19 and 20 and only narrowly missed the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome . In the meantime he began studying at the Sport University in Cologne .

After Willi Holdorf had won the German championship title in 1961 and 1963 in the decathlon and in 1962 in the 200 meter hurdles , he achieved his greatest success at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo . In an exciting final against Rein Aun from the Soviet Union, he became the first German to win the Olympic decathlon. In the final 1500 meter run , he was allowed to lose a maximum of 18 seconds to his rival. When he finally crossed the finish line 12 seconds after Aun, he collapsed exhausted and was only able to look forward to winning the gold medal some time later. The following overview shows the balance between the two athletes. It was the closest decision in an Olympic decathlon to date. The fourth-placed American Paul Herman achieved only 100 points less than Holdorf.

discipline	100 m	Far	Bullet	High	400 m	obstacles	discus	Rod	spear	1500 m	Points
Holdorf	10.7 s	7.00 m	14.95 m	1.84 m	48.2 s	15.2 s	46.05 m	4.20 m	57.37 m	4: 34.3 min	7887
Aun	10.9 s	7.22 m	13.82 m	1.93 m	48.8 s	15.9 s	44.19 m	4.20 m	59.06 m	4: 22.3 min	7842

His greatest success, which earned him the title of Sportsman of the Year in Germany in 1964 , was also his last decathlon on an international level. He made another in Leverkusen in 1969 with 7170 points. Willi Holdorf was 1.82 m tall and had a competition weight of 90 kg as a decathlete.

Prime Minister Helmut Lemke (right) honors the participants in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. l. To the right: Willi Holdorf, Kurt Jarasinski, Hans-Helmut Trense, Rudi Bortz, the rowers of the Ratzeburg eight, Bruno Splieth, Uwe Beyer, Lutz Philipp

Holdorf also proved his versatility as a coach : for Bayer 04 Leverkusen he brought pole vaulters Claus Schiprowski and Reinhard Kuretzky as well as hurdler Günther Nickel to the top of the world. As coach of the Bundesliga soccer club SC Fortuna Köln , he was unable to avert the team's relegation in 1974. He was successful in bobsleigh : in the 1970s, he and Horst Floth once became vice European champion (1973 in Cervinia ) and fourth in the two-man bobsleigh world championship.

Later, in addition to his voluntary work in many areas of sport, he has worked for a large sporting goods manufacturer since 1970 and is a co-partner of THW Kiel Handball Bundesliga GmbH & Co. KG , which forms the foundation for the handball Bundesliga club THW Kiel .

In 2011 Willi Holdorf was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Sports .

In his first marriage Holdorf was married to the handball national player Doris von Jutrzenka , their son Dirk Holdorf became a professional footballer. Holdorf was married to Sabine Holdorf-Schust (* 1954) since December 2002. From April 2009 to January 2013 she was managing director of THW Kiel Handball-Bundesliga Verwaltungs GmbH.

Best performance in the individual disciplines

discipline	power
100 m	10.4 s
Long jump	7.37 m
Shot put	15.07 m
high jump	1.84 m
400 m	47.8 s
110 m hurdles	14.5 s
Discus throw	46.05 m
Pole vault	4.30 m
Javelin throw	57.37 m
1500 m	4: 29.7 min

literature

• Karl Seeger: Willi Holdorf - King of the Athletes. Bintz-Dohany, Offenbach am Main 1965.
• Knut Teske : The world stands still. The decathlete Willi Holdorf and his Olympic victory in 1964. Arete, Hildesheim 2014, ISBN 978-3-942468-43-5 .
• 50 years of gold boy. In: Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , October 18, 2014 edition, Sport.

Web links

Commons : Willi Holdorf  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Portrait, dates and biography of Willi Holdorf in the Hall of Fame of German Sports
• Willi Holdorf in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Willi Holdorf in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely available)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Decathlon Olympic champion Holdorf has died. In: RP Online , July 6, 2020. Accessed July 6, 2020.
2. ^ Sabine Holdorf-Schust website of THW Kiel, accessed on January 25, 2013
3. ↑ Kieler Nachrichten: Adam gets to work , accessed on January 25, 2013