Gert-Dietmar Klause

Gert -Dietmar Klause ( born March 25, 1945 in Reumtengrün ) is a former German cross-country skiers.

Klause was a distance specialist for the 30 km and 50 km, but also reached on the 15 kilometers and in the 4 x 10 km relay good results. Klause competed for the SC Dynamo Klingenthal and internationally for the German Democratic Republic. At the Olympic Winter Games in 1976 he became the first German ever to 50 kilometers an Olympic medal, namely silver. Only Axel Teichmann was able to repeat this success 34 years later at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In the Nordic World Ski Championships 1970 in Czechoslovakia, he finished in the 4x10 km relay together with Gerd Hessler, Axel Lesser and Gerhard Grimmer second place. In the Nordic World Ski Championships 1974 in Falun, Sweden, the GDR won the 4x10 km relay race with the same team's formation.

Gert -Dietmar Klause is also several times GDR champion. He is currently the only German and the first non- Scandinavian peninsula and Finland from the originating runner who won the Vasaloppet. The GDR sports leadership wanted the mid-1970s a cross-country competition hold, which also includes Swedish runners should come. The Swedish opposite side agreed on the condition that East German athletes to participate in the Vasaloppet. Among the athletes was also sent Klause, who first reached in 1975 this famous cross-country skiing competition in the then record time of 4.20,29 hours the goal. The racing action was exciting and the finish very closely, so that the ring girl the victor's crown, contrary to the tradition of the First could not hand over to the last 100 meters before the finish line, as the Second, Åke Wingskog, only a few seconds ran behind Klause, so that the transfer of the winning crown whose victory would have endangered.

His most successful athletic phase had Klause 1970-1977 and, together with Gerhard Grimmer Germany's most successful cross-country skiers. In the early 1990s, he participated as a recreational athletes again at the Vasaloppet, reaching with 5:27 hours a respectable position just below the best 700 runners.

1974 and 1976 Gert -Dietmar Klause was awarded the Patriotic Order of Merit in bronze.

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