Ulrike Meyfarth
Ulrike Nasse- Meyfarth (born Meyfarth; born May 4, 1956 in Frankfurt am Main ) is a former German high jumper and two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Career
Seventies
Ulrike Meyfarth already at a young age her athletic talent showed. In 1971, she was at the age of 15 years, surprising second in the German Athletics Championships. You could confirm the success in the following year and qualified as a third place for the Olympic Games in Munich.
In Olympic competition Meyfarth was one of the few athletes who jumped the Fosbury flop four years earlier shown for the first time by the American high jumper Dick Fosbury. Before a home crowd succeeded Meyfarth, to increase their personal best, which previously was 1.85 meters by five centimeters. With 1.90 m skipped it secured the gold medal in front of the Bulgarian Jordanka Blagoewa and the Austrian Ilona Gusenbauer. As the Olympic victory had already been decided, let Meyfarth raise the bar on the world record height of 1.92 m. These height mastered the 16 -year-old and put in order a the existing world record. Meyfarth is to date the youngest athletics Olympic champion in an individual event.
In the years after its surprising victory, she went into a sporting crisis. Your jumps no longer had the usual constancy, their personal best she could not increase until 1978. At the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal she did not qualify for the final, at the European Athletics Championships 1974 in Rome and 1978 in Prague, she finished seventh and fifth place. At the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, she was not allowed to participate because of the Olympic boycott.
Comeback
1982 managed Meyfarth her comeback. At the European Championships in Athens, she won the world record of 2.02 m. The following year, she won at the World Championships in Helsinki after a thrilling duel with the Russian Tamara Bykova the silver medal.
On August 21, 1983 that at an athletics meeting in London both Meyfarth and Tamara Bykova to increase the world record to 2.03 m. Four days later Bykova put even after one centimeter.
The 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles were the last major competition, in which Ulrike Meyfarth participated. In the end, Meyfarth sat with skipped 2,02 m against the defending champion Sara Simeoni of Italy and won by twelve years after Munich their second Olympic gold medal. However, some promising competitors inside were due to the Olympics boycott of the Eastern Bloc countries not at the start, including Tamara Bykova. At the time of her second triumph Meyfarth was both the youngest and the oldest high jump Olympic champion in the history of the Olympic Games. Currently, the record of the oldest Olympic champion in high jump by Stefka Kostadinowa is held, who won gold in 1996 at the age of 31 years.
Awards
Your sporting successes helped Meyfarth to a large popularity. In 1972, she received the Silver, 1974, 1975 and 1982, the Golden Bravo Otto in the youth magazine BRAVO. From 1981 to 1984 she was elected four times in a row Athlete of the Year. In 1984 she was also awarded a Bambi. The city Wesseling, grew up in Ulrike Meyfarth announced on May 23, 2004 their previous crown Busch Stadium named " Ulrike - Meyfarth Stadium ". In 2011 she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of German sport.
Political commitment
Meyfarth is a member of the Association as well as an ambassador for the Initiative for a New Social Market Economy.
Others
Ulrike Meyfarth is 1,88 m tall and weighed in their active time 70 kg. She is a certified physical education teacher and currently working as a trainer at TSV Bayer 04 Leverkusen. In 1987 she married the Cologne Bar Roland Wet. With him and her two daughters, she lives in the Bergisch Odenthal.
Publications
- Ulrike Meyfarth: Not only the height is changing. From Olympia to Olympia, 12 Summer loneliness. Econ -Verlag, Dusseldorf, among others 1984, ISBN 3-430-16665-9.