Wolfgang Schmidt (athlete)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wolfgang Schmidt (1977)

Wolfgang Schmidt (born January 16, 1954 in Berlin ) is a former German discus thrower who won an Olympic silver medal for the GDR starting in 1976. From 1982 he made headlines through an initially failed escape and the later move from the GDR to West Germany. In 1990 he was third in the European Championship for the Federal Republic of Germany.

Career in the GDR

Ernst Schmidt's son won the discus throw at the European Junior Championships in 1973 and took second place in the shot put. At the European Championships in 1974, Schmidt reached an international final in the adult class for the first time and finished eighth. In 1975 Schmidt won his first GDR championship in discus throwing, which was followed by five more by 1980 . In 1976 Schmidt reached the Olympic final in the discus throw. With 66.22 m he won the silver medal behind the American Mac Wilkins , who reached 67.50 m. For this success he was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze. At the Athletics World Cup in 1977 and 1979 , Schmidt won ahead of Wilkins.

On August 9, 1978, Schmidt improved Mac Wilkins' world record by a foot to 71.16 m in the Dynamo Sports Park in Berlin. Schmidt's litter was exceeded in 1981 by the American Ben Plucknett , whose performance as a world record was not recognized because of doping. Schmidt's world record held until May 1983 when the Soviet thrower Yuri Dumchev threw the disc seventy centimeters further. In September 1978 Schmidt took fourth place in the shot put at the European Championships in Prague, and after the doping disqualification of Yevgeny Mironov, who placed second, Schmidt moved up to third place. Two days after the ball final, Schmidt won the final in the discus throw. 1978 was the only year in which Wolfgang Schmidt topped the world's annual best list at the end of the year. In 1979 Schmidt won the World Cup as well as the title at the Universiade , but Mac Wilkins was again ahead of him in the world's best list of the year. Mac Wilkins and John Powell were due to the Olympic boycott in 1980 not at the Olympic Games in Moscow, Wolfgang Schmidt was so favorite for the Olympic final, but finished only fourth.

Escape from the GDR

After the disappointing fourth place at the 1980 Olympic Games and a missed World Cup start in Rome in 1981 due to a second place at the GDR championships, Wolfgang Schmidt decided to make his fortune as an athlete in the Federal Republic. As a member of a police sports club ( SV Dynamo ) with the rank of lieutenant in the People's Police , he was monitored in the GDR by the Ministry for State Security , and he fell for a bogus organization of his escape . In the fall of 1982 he was sentenced to one and a half years in prison for attempting to " illegally cross the border ". A year later he was released and hired as a coach at SG Dynamo Adlershof , a sports club of the State Security Guard Regiment . Wolfgang Schmidt submitted an application to leave Germany in order to continue his sports career in Germany. At the end of 1987 he was able to move to West Germany - too late to be nominated for the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul. In the last international athletics match between the GDR and the Federal Republic of Germany, there was a scandal because the winner Jürgen Schult did not want to be congratulated by Wolfgang Schmidt.

Further stations in life

Jürgen Schult won the European Championships in 1990, Schmidt won the bronze medal. In 1990 and 1991 Schmidt became German champion in discus throwing and in 1991 also defeated Jürgen Schult. Lars Riedel won the 1991 World Championships , Schmidt took fourth place. Since Schmidt did not compete in the mandatory qualifying competitions for the Olympic Games in Barcelona in 1992 , he was not considered for the Olympic team. He later moved to San Francisco and became a stockbroker and management consultant .

Wolfgang Schmidt started in the GDR for SC Dynamo Berlin and trained with Joachim Spenke , later he competed for the Stuttgarter Kickers and the starting community LG VfB / Kickers Stuttgart. His best performance in discus was his world record from 1978, in the shot put he reached 20.76 m on May 31, 1978. He is 1.99 m tall and weighed 115 kg when he was active.

Successes in detail

  • 1973: Junior European Championships : 1st place in the discus throw (61.30 m) and 2nd place in the shot put (18.45 m)
  • 1974: European Championships : 8th place in the discus throw ( 59.56 m - invalid - 57.44 - 59.06 - 58.88 - 58.52)
  • 1976: Olympic Games in Montreal : 2nd place in the discus throw (63.68 - invalid - 65.16 - invalid - 63.96 - 66.22 m )
  • 1978: European Championships : 1st place in the discus throw (64.04 - 61.68 - 64.52 - 62.08 - 65.94 - 66.82 m ); 4th place in the shot put (19.86 - 19.63 - 19.92 - 19.62 - 20.30 m - 19.49), later moved up to 3rd place
  • 1979: Universiade : 1st place in the discus throw 60.78 m
  • 1980: Olympic Games in Moscow : 4th place in the discus throw ( invalid - 61.60 - 65.30 - 65.64 m - 65.34 - invalid )
  • 1990: European Championships : 3rd place (61.28 - 60.84 - invalid - 64.08 - 64.10 m - invalid ), starting for the Federal Republic.
  • 1991: World Championships : 4th place (63.66 - 61.84 - 60.58 - 64.48 - 64.76 - 60.72)

literature

  • Klaus Amrhein: Biographical manual on the history of German athletics 1898–2005 . 2 volumes. Darmstadt 2005 published on Deutsche Leichtathletik Promotion- und Projektgesellschaft p. 1061
  • Manfred Holzhausen: world records and world record holder. Shot put discus throw . Grevenbroich 2001
  • William O. Johnson & Anita Verschoth: Thrown Free. Wolfgang Schmidt. The glamor and misery of a German sports career. Sportverlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-328-00510-2 ; Ullstein, Frankfurt / Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-548-23212-4
  • Volker Kluge :  Schmidt, Wolfgang . In: Who was who in the GDR? 5th edition. Volume 2. Ch. Links, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-86153-561-4 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About the honor for the Olympic team of the GDR. Awarded high government awards. Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze. In: New Germany . September 10, 1976, p. 4 , accessed on April 10, 2018 (online at ZEFYS - newspaper portal of the Berlin State Library , free registration required).
personal data
SURNAME Schmidt, Wolfgang
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German discus thrower
DATE OF BIRTH January 16, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin