Wolfgang Nordwig
Wolfgang Nordwig ( born August 27, 1943 in Sigmar -Schönau, Saxony ) is Olympic champion and former world record holder in the pole vault and now lives in Schleiz.
Life
Nordwig was one of the most successful athletes of the SC Motor Jena. As the successor of the eight-time East German champion Manfred Preussger from SC DHfK Leipzig he won eight times from 1965 to 1972 the East German Championship titles in the pole vault to Jena. He also won the respective titles at the European Athletics Championships in the pole vault in 1966, 1969 and 1971.
At the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, he was a member of the first independently occurring GDR Olympic team. The pole vault finals completed the three medal winners at the same height of 5.40 m skipped: Gold went to Bob Seagren (USA), Silver Claus Schiprowski ( Federal Republic of Germany ) and bronze to Wolfgang Nordwig.
On June 17, 1970 Nordwig jumped in Berlin, the world record height of 5.45 m and thus replaces John Pennel (USA) as a world record holder from. In the same year he improved on September 3, his own world record at the World University Championships in Turin at 5.46 m.
The greatest sporting success came Nordwig at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where he scored his personal best of 5.50 m and above Bob Seagren won the gold medal. Seagren had already trained a long time before the games with in the U.S. newly developed carbon fiber rods and jumped with one of these rods world record. Since Nordwig and other jumpers in any case, these rods were not sufficiently long time before the games available, their use was banned. As an Olympic champion Wolfgang Nordwig 1972 elected East German Sportsman of the Year and finished in the same year his five -year-old pole vaulter career.
Nordwig had a competition weight of 72 kg at a height of 1.84 m. With multiple degrees in engineering, a degree in physics and a doctorate in economics, he worked in Kombinat VEB Carl Zeiss Jena and became a director in research and development. The early 90s, he left Thuringia and was managing director of a travel company in Berlin.