Annet Potzsch, 1980 Olympic Champion

[silverpond]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anett_Pötzsch

Here's a link to a "wiki" write-up on Annet Potzsch, the East German figure skater who won the gold medal at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics in 1980. Potzsch was the first skater from then former GDR to win at the Olympics. She and Linda Fratianne traded World titles during the late 1970s, and Annet won at Lake Placid in a somewhat controversial decision. Her very high scores in the school figures gave her a cushion that Fratianne could not overcome -- despite the fact that Potzsch finished fourth in the short program and third in the free skate (compared to Fratianne's first in the short and second inthe long), Potzsch won the gold medal.

I'm sure many of us remember watching that competition on live television, and perhaps some of you were fortunate enough to have actually attended the competition. The audience was clearly disappointed at the result, as of course Fratianne was. Annet was a lovely, gracious champion, and shed a few tears of joy when her country's anthem was played at the medal ceremony.

Potzsch skated to the theme from "Funny Girl", while Fratianne skated to "Firebird". Both skated very well, in my view. After her victory, Annet spoke of the enormous pressure she had been put under by the East German Figure Skating Federation. It wasn't just enough for her to win an Olympic medal - she was expected to win the gold medal. Her coach, Jutta Mueller, gave her this "pep talk" -- "You must be strong. You must go for all of your jumps. You must win!"

Potzsch returned to East Germany after the 1980 Worlds, which she won, and retired from competition. There was no possibility for her to embark on a professional skating career, at least not in terms of the opportunities in the "West". She became a figure skating coach and judge, which was the route taken by most of the other retired GDR skaters. The big exception, of course, was Katarina Witt. Witt had the glamour, marketability, and the good fortune to come along just before the fall of the Berlin Wall - and the freedom to skate when and where she wanted to skate.

Potzsch was one of the featured skaters in "Skates of Gold", a wonderful made-for-TV program that featured a bevy of former Olympic champions. The last time she appeared in the program, she skated a "group" number with Peggy Fleming, Kristi Yamaguchi, and several others. She clearly could still skate, and she looked great on the ice.

 

[pangtongfan]

Fratianne was overscored I felt. I didnt think she was as much superior to Poetzsch in the long program as the scores suggested, and Fratianne scoring as close to Biellmann in the long as she did was a joke. Biellmann made both Poetzsch and Fratianne look like amateurs by comparision in the free skate. I would have had a split decision between Fratianne and Poetzsch in the long, and presuming the other programs were scored right, Poetzsch winning overall by an even bigger margin.

 

[silverpond]

Dear Pangtongfan -- I have to agree with what other posters have written in response to some of your posts. While you certainly have the right to express your opinion, may I respectfully disagree with your constant negative, near-bashing tone? Really, can't you at least try to be positive and take the high road at times?

My own two cents, of course.

 

[Olympia]

I liked Poetzsch; she had a lot of charm. My understanding of skating wasn't secure enough for me to evaluate her skating, especially in comparison to other skaters. At that point I was immature enough to want Fratianne to win solely because she was American. (That wasn't relevant in men's skating because Robin Cousins was so far above the rest of the field that I couldn't even tell you who the American men were in the Olympics.)

While we're at it, what are other people's opinions about Poetzsch and Fratianne? Neither of them seems exceedingly memorable to me in terms of artistic innovation. (I hope this does not sound uncharitable.) What am I missing?

 

[jcoates]

Olympia makes an excellent point, one which some younger fans of skating may not fully grasp. You can't look at the Poetzsch/Fratianne rivalry without taking the Cold War and it's impact on sports into context. Virtually every international sporting event was framed as an east vs west battle. Defeating "the other side" was always the chief priority for the athletes, fans, the media and frequently the politicians. It may all seem silly to someone who did not live through it, but it was very real, very personal and very important to people at the time.

In some ways it was also a much more innocent time. The average person, like Olympia at the time, was a much more casual sports fan. The only sports about which most people were fluent in 1980 were football, baseball, and basketball. Maybe hockey, golf or tennis (which was a boom sport at the time). Skating was still a seasonal sport at best and one which most people only cared about every four years. People didn't know a salchow from a camel spin. They just knew they liked watching in general and wanted the skater from their side to win whenever possible.

There was no internet, no wikis, no wealth of communication and information to draw people together like there is now. People were more linked by national identity which also served as cultural identity. For most Americans, Linda was just like the kind of young woman who was ideal for them at the time. She was very pretty (without being trashy), perky, good-natured, athletic enough but still feminine and soft. All of that was enough for most people here to root for her. She was just like them. In hindsight, Annet really was not too different from Linda, but she was viewed and portrayed to the audience as being very foreign. A German accent was still a pretty foreign thing for most people and WWII was still fresh in a lot of people's minds. All of that made it virtually impossible to set up Annet as broadly likable going into the Olympics. But she did herself great credit in the way she handled herself during those games. People saw that she was a very sweet young woman who had worked really hard to achieve her accomplishment. I'd argue that she helped lay the foundation for Witt's immense popularity later. Seeing one East German girl perform well and be likable in the process meant that it was possible to like other East German athletes. The Soviets were still viewed as virtual robots, but opinions of other eastern bloc athletes were starting to thaw in the early 80s. Politically, the east and west were communicating and negotiating more than ever. Cultural exchanges became more frequent. So when Katerina rose to prominence, America was more ready to embrace her and offer her tremendous money making opportunities. Sadly for Annet, that came a few years too late.

 

[Mafke]

There was no possibility for her to embark on a professional skating career, at least not in terms of the opportunities in the "West". She became a figure skating coach and judge, which was the route taken by most of the other retired GDR skaters. The big exception, of course, was Katarina Witt. Witt had the glamour, marketability, and the good fortune to come along just before the fall of the Berlin Wall - and the freedom to skate when and where she wanted to skate.

The difference wasn't just in timing. Witt was already skating in the west before the Berlin wall fell. The difference was that Witt had a _very_ comfortable relationship with the DDR government (including being a party member iinm and a very willing 'partner' to the secret police). She was probably regarded as a much smaller defection threat than Poetzsch.

Getting back to Poetzsch, she had a lot of nice qualities in her free skating but kind of wonky jump technique (not unusual for the day - jump training has come a long way from the 70's). But she earned her 3rd finish in the lp at Lake Placid (not too shabby).

She also didn't have to fix it too much because the ordinal system still gave the figures more than their supposed 30%. Poetzsch totally dominated figures in her day when that gave her a greater lead than she would have had under factored placements. Under the factored placement system she still would have been on the podium but probably not gold unless she had the SP and LP of her life.

I also think that Fratianne gets a lot of retrospective bad press. She might have been overscored a time or two but that was the reality of the discipline with figures as a skater's placement there affected their scores in the next two rounds. To get really great free skating marks you needed to have gotten decent figure marks and skaters who were placing under Fratianne (esp Biellmann and Allen) weren't doing that.

Typically, the olympics LP showed neither Fratianne or Poetzsch at their best. Poetzsch's best LP came at that year's Europeans and Fratianne's came at worlds. I don't know if Poetzsch's best would have beaten Biellmann (whose best LP was at the olys) but Fratianne's might well have.

 

[Olympia]

Thanks, Mafke, for the evaluation of these ladies' skating, and JCoates, for the analysis of the context. I would add that we had been a bit spoiled by the fact that our last three ladies' contenders had been three of the greatest skaters in our history, Fleming, Lynn, and Hamill. Their skating is still enjoyed, admired, and even revered. So casual or new fans such as myself probably expected all American ladies' skaters to be unique artists and also top-of-the-podium Olympians. Fratianne, a good skater but not a legendary one, couldn't possibly live up to that. I still remember her sparkling debut in the 1976 Nationals, when she was a jumping machine and got possibly the biggest applause of the night. I think she became the designated heir that night. But I don't recall that she had the outsize personality of a Hamill or the amazing gifts of a Janet Lynn or a Peggy Fleming. For my part, I cooled on her for a very personal reason: I recall the next time I saw her, she skated to a kind of chopped-up medley of classical snippets that barely went for two measures before changing abruptly. There was no chance for any interpretive skating to that mishmash. Her skate seemed perfunctory and dutiful, poor girl. I'm sure it was fine, but I had nothing to hold onto in it. Fortunately, at that moment men's skating was really thriving, as John Curry and Toller Cranston were starting to tour, and Robin Cousins was taking over the screen in amateur competition, so I had plenty to enjoy.

Whether Poetzsch and Fratianne were great skaters by the time of the Olympics I couldn't say, but certainly Robin Cousins was one.

 

[silverpond]

The Lake Placid Olympics was held under the cloud of the Iran hostage crisis, double-digit inflation, and the Cold War. The "East/West" mentality carried into the figure skating world, without question.
During the Games, President Carter announced the boycott of the American Olympic team at Moscow.

The women's freeskate was held the night after the US hockey team stunned the Soviet hockey team. The atmosphere was electric. Those of us who watched the competition on LIVE television were caught up in the drama. I can't imagine the feeling of actually being in the stands for this particular competition.

Linda Fratianne skated a good, solid long program, with two opening triples. She seemed a bit tight at first and relaxed a bit towards the end of her program. It was a commendable effort.

Annet Poetzsch missed her first planned triple and landed only one clean triple, with a number of solid double jumps. Her skating was also solid, and it was also a commendable effort.

I agree with the posters' views that Linda and Annet were very good competitors but probably did not qualify for the category of "legendary". They traded World titles during the late 1970's and while they were the dominating duo, neither was heads and shoulders above the other. Annet was the superior school figures skater, while Linda was the superior free skater.

At that time, East Germany was making its mark as a powerhouse in specific Olympic sports, one of which was figure skating. Without a doubt, many Americans were disappointed that Linda did not follow in the footsteps of Albright/Heiss/Fleming/Hamill to become the next "America's sweetheart of the ice".