East Germany at the Winter Olympics
East Germany (German Democratic Republic) competed as a sovereign nation at the Winter Olympics from 1968 until 1988. The nation was strong in speed skating, bobsleigh, biathlon, figure skating, luge and Nordic combined.
Notable East German athletes at the Winter Games include Thomas Köhler who won 3 medals (2 gold and 1 silver), Andrea Ehrig-Schöne-Mitscherlich who won 7 medals (1 gold, 5 silver and 1 bronze) in speed skating and Frank Ullrich who captured 4 medals (1 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze).
The GDR had been dissolved when it joined the Federal Republic of Germany in a German reunification process. As such, the "NOC of the GDR" merged with the "NOC of Germany" on November 17, 1990. German athletes competed at the Olympic Games as a single team again from 1992 onwards.
East Germany Athletes were suspected of state sponsored use of performance enhancing drugs. In no doubt was that the nation funneled in huge funds into sport, specifically in Olympic sports, to gain prestige, propaganda and bragging rights against its bigger rival West Germany.
For more see Germany at the Winter Olympics.
Trivia
- In Grenoble in 1968, East German luge competitors Ortrun Enderlein and Anna-Maria Muller - in contention for a clean-sweep - were disqualified when it was discovered their toboggan runners had been heated.
- Only five athletes have ever won medals at both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games, including Christa Luding-Rothenburger of East Germany, though she is the only one to have won the medals in the same year. She had won the women's 1000 meter speed skating event at the Winter Olympics in Calgary 1988, and seven months later won a silver medal in track cycling in the Seoul Summer Olympic Games.
- Karin Kania-Enke won either gold or silver in each of the four women's speed skating events, to become the most medaled East German athlete at the 1984 Winter Games
Related Pages
- See also Germany and West Germany at the Winter Olympics
- About Sport in East Germany
- East Germany at the Summer Olympics
- More Winter Olympics Countries
- Winter Olympics main page.
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