Renate Vogel
Renate Vogel in the GDR Swimming Championships (1971 )
Renate Bauer, born bird (* June 30, 1955 in Karl- Marx-Stadt ) is a former swimmer who competed for East Germany.
Career
Their first big success came in the chest swimmer at the 1972 Olympics in Munich when she over 4 × 100 meter medley won the silver medal with the East German squadron. A year later she was at the first World Swimming Championships in Belgrade world champion on both the 100 meters and 200 meters on the chest. In the European Swimming Championships in Vienna in 1974, she won the silver medal behind Christel Justen.
In her career she was also with the GDR - Season improve the world record in the 100m breaststroke and 1972-1974 the world record in the 4 × 100 meter medley several times in 1974.
Flight and pursuit
After the women's swimming began an intensification of training and medical power manipulation by the 1972 Olympics, doping rumors began also with the athletes around. After Renate Vogel acted as the favorite at the European Championships in 1974 only won silver behind the West German Christel Justen, she was treated by the sports officials as a failure. It matured the decision to flee. After the completion of their training the more mature decision of the flight was put into action. She received money from friends for a plane ticket and a West German passport and boarded under a false identity in 1979 after a vacation stay in Budapest a plane to Munich. After their arrival, they reported in various international media extensively on the East German talent and thereby applied systematic and hidden doping practices of the GDR. A subsequent threat of revenge actions of the communist state was revealed when she had to be guarded during an ORF interview in Vienna by bodyguards.
After fleeing to West Germany, she worked as a swimming coach at SV Bietigheim and was from 1982 to 1988 assistant coach of the German national team. Since 1983 she also works as an independent retail clerk.
Renate Vogel is the cousin of the swimmer Helga Lindner, the 1970 European Champion in the 200m butterfly.