Winter Olympic Games

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Participating Countries: Germany

Although there were a divided country, the Germans send a joint East-West team between 1952 and 1964. In 1968 East Germany and West Germany officially sent separate teams for the first time and continued to do up until 1988.

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.

• At Albertville in 1992 Germany sent a single team after East and West German reunification in 1990.

• Only four 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.

• At the 1998 Nagano Games, Katja Seizinger of Germany became the first woman to win the downhill gold in successive Olympics.

• In Nagano in 1998, German luge great Georg Hackl became just the sixth Winter Olympian to win the same event in three consecutive Games.

• German Georg Hackl won the silver in luge in 2002, becoming the first athlete ever to win five medals in one event. Also at the same Games, German speed-skater Claudia Pechstein won two gold medals, taking home a medal in four straight Winter Games.

Related Pages

• more Winter Olympics Countries
• Winter Olympics main page.
• About Sport in Germany