East German Figure Skaters | Golden Skate

East German Figure Skaters

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SkateFan4Life

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Those of us old enough to have followed the sport of figure skating long enough to remember the championships that were held before the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 can remember the cadre of top figure skaters who were developed in and represented the German Democratic Republic (GDR), or East Germany.

From the years between 1966 and 1990, a succession of top East German women stood on the European, World, and Olympic podium. Granted, it was a small collection of skaters, as typically there was only one world-ranked GDR skater on the scene at the same time, but these women usually managed to bring medals home to the GDR.

Starting in 1966, Gabrielle (Gaby) Seyfert, the daughter of the renowned GDR skating coach, Frau Muller, won three World silver medals and the 1968 Olympic silver medal, each time finishing second to Peggy Fleming of the US. In 1969 and 1970, Gaby won the world title, and she left the competitive ranks after her second World title to return home to the GDR. I could never quite understand why she did not continue on through the 1972 season, as quite likely she would have won the Olympic gold medal. Seyfert was a bubbly blond, rather stockily built, and she had high jumps and great energy.

In 1973 another East German skater, Christine Errath made the first of several appearances on the World podium. She won the bronze in 1973, the gold in 1974, the bronze in 1975, and the silver in 1976. Christine won the Olympic bronze medal in 1976, behind Dorothy Hamill and Dianne deLeeuw. Errath had a habit of standing at center ice at the conclusion of her programs, with her hands on her hips, looking directly at the judges. She, too, seemed to have a lot of joy in her skating. She wasn't particularly graceful or artistic, but she had strong jumps and determination.

Annet Poetzsch was next in line. She won World silver medals in 1977 and 1979, behind Linda Fratianne of the US, and she won the World title in 1978 and 1980. Annet won the Olympic gold medal at Lake Placid in 1980, in a somewhat controversial finish. In those days, the compulsory school figures counted for half of of the overall score, with the short program counting for 20 percent and the long program counting for the remaining 30 percent. The cumulative number of points determined the winner. Annet was excellent in the school figures, and she built up a solid lead after that phase of the competition. While her free skating was relatively weak - she was only 4th in the short and 3rd in the long - she won enough overal points to win the gold medal. I remember her long program as solid if somewhat dull. She skated to the soundtrack of "Funny Girl", presumably in an attempt to appeal to the American audience. Annet only landed one triple jump - a salchow - in her long program, and she two-footed one of her double jumps, but, again, she was good enough to hold on to the gold medal. As she stood at the boards to skate her long program, Frau Muller took both of her hands and said to her, "You must be strong. You must land the jumps. You must win." Annet was overjoyed at becoming the first East German figure skater to win Olympic gold, and she wept as her national anthem was played at the medal ceremony.

Katarina Witt was the next noteable GDR skater, and she became a major star in the sport. She won six European titles, four World titles (1984, 1985, 1987, 1988) and the 1984 and 1988 Olympic titles. Katarina's success was helped, no doubt, by the fact that she was stunningly beautiful - "12-car pileup gorgeous", as "Sports Illustrated" described her. When she won her first Olympic title, she received thousands of passionate love letters from all over the world. She, too, was also coached by Frau Muller, and she was extremely well trained and competitively sharp in her major competitions. Witt may not have been the best skater of her era, but she was the best competitor - she came through when it counted, and she skated brilliantly under pressure. She said after Calgary that she was extremely nervous, not only because she wanted to defend her title, but she also knew that if she failed to win the gold medal she would probably not be allowed to travel outside of her country to skate professionally. As it happened, the collapse of the Berlin Wall opened the doors for her to skate wherever and whenever she chose to.

Evelyn Grossman and Simone Lang were up and coming East German skaters in the late 1980's, and they pretty much disappeared from the radar, competitively speaking, after the GDR ceased to exist.

Witt has been interviewed several times on "Larry King" and other talk shows. She spoke at length about the "privileges" she received as a champion skater who represented the GDR. These goodies included spending money (a very small amount, compared to what today's top skaters earn), two small apartments, one in East Berlin, the other in her hometown of Karl Marx-Stadt, and a small car.

Katarina also said she was disappointed that her parents never had the chance to see her compete at the Olympics or at the Worlds until the 1988 Worlds, which were held in then-communist Budapest, Humgary. Obviously, the GDR was afraid that the Witt family might choose to defect, if they were all out of the country at the same time.

Jan Hoffman was the most prominent of the East German men during that era. He won the World title in 1974 and 1980, bronze in 1976 and 1979, silver in 1977 and 1978, and the Olympic silver medal in 1980. Hoffman was strong and solid, but not particularly artistic or expressive. I remember "Sports Illustrated" describe his skating at Lake Placid to an "expertly spinning wood tree". Ouch! Hoffman has been a longtime figure skating judge. He was "blamed" for awarding the tiebreaker artistic mark to Oksana Baiul at the 1994 Olympics that ultimately gave Baiul the gold medal over Nancy Kerrigan of the US. Yet, as Scott Hamilton said, "Jan is one of the most honest, decent people I've ever known. He would not have awarded the mark unless he truly believed that was the right mark to give."

Sabine Baess and Tassilo Thierbach won the World pairs title in 1982, the silver in 1981 and 1983, and the bronze in 1984. Manuela Mager and Uwe Bewersdorf won three successive World silver medals in 1978 - 1980, and they won the Olympic pairs bronze medal in 1976 and 1980. Romy Kermer and Roft Osterrech won World silver medals in 1975 and 1976, the World bronze medal in 1974 and the Olympic silver medal in 1976.
 
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S

SkateFan4Life

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Although I was glad to see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the unification of West and East Germany into one country, etc., I miss the steady stream of figure skaters from the GDR who competed at Worlds and Olympics. I suspect that they would have continued to flourish, had their system continued on. Granted, their "stream" generally consisted of one top skater or pair team, instead of the multiple medal contenders from such countries as Russia, Japan, and the United States, but they did very, very well, all things considered.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
In those days, the compulsory school figures counted for half of of the overall score, with the short program counting for 20 percent and the long program counting for the remaining 30 percent.

That was never the percentage. For most of the period when there were three phases to the singles events, including 1980, the breakdown was 30% figures (10% for each of the 3 figures), 20% short program, 50% long program.

1980 was the last year before the introduction of factored placements for rankings within each phase. Before that, the percentages were applied judge by judge for the whole event. So for a judge who used wider ranges of marks for the figures than for the two freestyle phases, which was often the case, the figures placements could end up being more of a determining factor of that judge's ordinals than the freeskating placements. But officially, figures were worth 30%.
 

thisthingcalledlove

Final Flight
Joined
Sep 24, 2003
gkelly said:
That was never the percentage. For most of the period when there were three phases to the singles events, including 1980, the breakdown was 30% figures (10% for each of the 3 figures), 20% short program, 50% long program.

1980 was the last year before the introduction of factored placements for rankings within each phase. Before that, the percentages were applied judge by judge for the whole event. So for a judge who used wider ranges of marks for the figures than for the two freestyle phases, which was often the case, the figures placements could end up being more of a determining factor of that judge's ordinals than the freeskating placements. But officially, figures were worth 30%.

So basically, the panel could just pick whomever they liked...

Poor Denise.
 

CDMM1991

Medalist
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
OT but thisthingcalledlove that is the COOLEST signature!! Let me guess the other two besides Michelle, Sasha and Midori?
 

Grgranny

Da' Spellin' Homegirl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
I thought maybe it was Sasha and Kristi. Let us know. It is so cool.
 

gkelly

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
thisthingcalledlove said:
So basically, the panel could just pick whomever they liked...

Poor Denise.

Only if they could keep track of all the math, including the multiplying factors for each phase. Frankly, I doubt many judges would have bothered, or even had the facility with numbers to be able to.

And of course the panel was made up of 9 individuals each with their own opinions, loyalties, and biases, so there wouldn't have been any corporate agenda from the panel as a whole.

You can find the actual marks here:
http://www.aya.or.jp/~polaris/winter_olympic/index.htm
 
S

SkateFan4Life

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gkelly said:
That was never the percentage. For most of the period when there were three phases to the singles events, including 1980, the breakdown was 30% figures (10% for each of the 3 figures), 20% short program, 50% long program.

1980 was the last year before the introduction of factored placements for rankings within each phase. Before that, the percentages were applied judge by judge for the whole event. So for a judge who used wider ranges of marks for the figures than for the two freestyle phases, which was often the case, the figures placements could end up being more of a determining factor of that judge's ordinals than the freeskating placements. But officially, figures were worth 30%.

Well, OK, math was never my best subject. I have my mind stuck in the days of Peggy Fleming, when the compulsory school figures were 60 percent of the total score, and the free skating was 40 percent. This was then leveled to 50/50, after which the short program came into being. I think your breakdown of
30/20/50 for school figures, short, and long was correct for Lake Placid. Any way you look at it, if you blew the school figures, you really had to dig yourself out of a hole to win a medal. As wonderful as Denise Biellman skated in her short and long program, she had to settle for fourth place at Lake Placid, thanks to her relatively weak performance (or low scoring) in the school figures. Linda Fratianne wasn't the best school figures skater in her era, and she typically had to work her way up to gold, silver, or bronze via her strong free skating.
 
S

SkateFan4Life

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orchid said:
Care to add where are they now?

I'll try. Gaby Seyfert retired from amateur competition following the 1970 Worlds and joined the East German press, where she covered a number of major competitions.

Christine Errath ??

Annet Poetzsch married and divorced Katarina Witt's brother. She was a skating coach in the GDR at one time - whether or not she's still involved with the sport is unknown to me. She skated in one of the "Skates of Gold" television specials about ten years ago, and she still skated quite well.

Kataarina Witt became a HUGE media star, and she she still continues to skate professionally. She and Brian Orser and Brian Boitano presented an Emmy-award winning "Carmen on Ice", and she and Boitano skated a "Carmen on Ice" tour. Kat was a headliner with "Champions on Ice" and "Stars on Ice", and she competed in a number of pro competitions. She has her own television special which typically features a number of other top women skaters. Witt wrote her German-language biography, and she has her own line of jewelry.

Evelyn Grossman & Simone Lang - ?? I'm assuming they retired many years ago.
 
S

SkateFan4Life

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CDMM1991 said:
OT but thisthingcalledlove that is the COOLEST signature!! Let me guess the other two besides Michelle, Sasha and Midori?

Cool! The top is Midori Ito landing the first-ever triple axel by a woman at the 1989 World Championships. Michelle Kwan is shown in her 1988 long program, and the other one is Sasha Cohen.
 

CDMM1991

Medalist
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
The video of Midori just looks like a double axel, maybe I'm wrong, and the one of Michelle is 1998 not '88
 

thisthingcalledlove

Final Flight
Joined
Sep 24, 2003
I was told that the gif of Midori is the triple. I'm not sure, however. Sasha's is obviously the double...and we all know Michelle's

As to where they are now- Christine Errath has a sports show in Germany now.
 

antmanb

Record Breaker
Joined
Feb 5, 2004
thisthingcalledlove said:
I was told that the gif of Midori is the triple. I'm not sure, however. Sasha's is obviously the double...and we all know Michelle's

As to where they are now- Christine Errath has a sports show in Germany now.

That's definitely Midori doing the triple axel - while the resolution of the little clip makes it difficult to count the turns - she's in the right costume and you can just make out her elated face - she also swings round shaprly on the landing just keeping the free foot off.

Ant
 
S

SkateFan4Life

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CDMM1991 said:
The video of Midori just looks like a double axel, maybe I'm wrong, and the one of Michelle is 1998 not '88

The video of Midori Ito was definitely the TRIPLE AXEL. You're correct - that was Michelle Kwan in 1998, not 1988. Just a typo!
 
S

SkateFan4Life

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Did you ever notice how the choregraphy of the East German skaters was pretty similar - rather dull (Witt as the exception)? Perhaps that's because they were coached by Frau Muller (or at least many of them were), and perhaps it's part of the then-Communist mindset that frowned on individuality and expression.
 
S

SkateFan4Life

Guest
I'm not sure whether this was caused by economic hardship, by the fact that they shared the same coach, or whatever, but Katarina Witt sometimes wore dresses that Annet Poetszch wore in previous seasons. They were about the same size, so the sharing of costumes probably did not entail too much alterations. I remember Witt wearing a black beaded dress that had been handed down by Poetszch.
 
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