Wolfgang Nordwig

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Wolfgang Nordwig (1965)

Wolfgang Nordwig (born August 27, 1943 in Siegmar-Schönau , Saxony ) is Olympic champion and former world record holder in the pole vault and now lives in Schleiz .

Life

Nordwig was one of the most successful athletes of the SC Motor Jena . As the successor to eight-time GDR champion Manfred Preußger from SC DHfK Leipzig , he won the GDR championship title in the pole vault eight times in Jena from 1965 to 1972 . He also won the title at the European Pole Vault Championships in 1966 , 1969 and 1971 .

At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City , he was a member of the GDR Olympic team, which appeared independently for the first time. The three medalists finished the pole vault final with the same jumped height of 5.40 m: Gold went to Bob Seagren (USA), silver to Claus Schiprowski (Federal Republic of Germany) and bronze to Wolfgang Nordwig.

On June 17, 1970, Nordwig jumped the world record height of 5.45 m in Berlin, replacing John Pennel (USA) as the world record holder. In the same year, on September 3, he improved his own world record at the Student World Championships in Turin to 5.46 m.

Nordwig celebrated his greatest sporting success at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , where he achieved his personal best with 5.50 m and won the gold medal ahead of Bob Seagren . Seagren had been training with newly developed carbon fiber sticks for a long time before the Games and had broken a world record with one of these sticks. Since Nordwig and other jumpers did not have these sticks available long enough before the games, their use was prohibited. As an Olympic champion, Wolfgang Nordwig was elected GDR athlete of the year in 1972 and ended his fifteen-year pole vaulting career in the same year.

From documents of the State Security , written a. a. from Manfred Höppner , leading doctor of GDR sport, it emerges that Nordwig was doped with anabolic steroids .

Nordwig had a competition weight of 72 kg with a height of 1.84 m. With several degrees as an engineer , graduate physicist and doctorate in economics , he worked in the VEB Carl Zeiss Jena combine and became director of research and development. In the early 1990s he left Thuringia and became managing director of a travel company in Berlin .

Awards (selection)

literature

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Nordwig  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Stasi document on Renate Stecher deutschlandfunk.de August 28, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Nordwig, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German pole vaulter and Olympic champion of the GDR (1972)
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH Siegmar-Schönau , Saxony