Katarina Witt

Katarina Witt

Witt in 2009
Personal information
Country represented  East Germany (1977–1988)
 Germany (1994)
Born 3 December 1965 (1965-12-03) (age 46)
Height 166 cm (5 ft 5 in)
Former coach Jutta Müller
Skating club SC Karl-Marx-Stadt
Retired 1988 and 1994

Katarina Witt (born 3 December 1965) is a German figure skater and model. In Germany she was commonly called "Kati" in the past, but today her full name is used more often.

She won two Olympic gold medals for East Germany, first in the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and the second in 1988 at the Calgary Olympics. She won the World Championships four times (in 1984, 1985, 1987, and 1988), and six consecutive European Championships (1983–1988). She won silver medals at both the 1982 and 1986 World Figure Skating Championships. Her competitive record makes her one of the most successful figure skaters of all time.

Contents

Life and career

Witt was born in Staaken in then East Germany, just outside of West Berlin, which is today part of Berlin. She went to school in Karl-Marx-Stadt (which today has reverted to its pre-war name of Chemnitz). There she attended a special school for athletically talented children named Kinder- und Jugendsportschule. She represented the club SC Karl-Marx-Stadt for the GDR (East Germany). Jutta Müller began coaching her in 1977.

In 1984, Witt was voted "GDR female athlete of the year" by the readers of the East German newspaper Junge Welt. She narrowly won the 1984 Olympic title over the favoured contender, reigning World champion Rosalynn Sumners of the United States. Witt and Sumners held the top two spots heading into the Olympic free skate, which were worth 50% of the total score. Witt landed three triple jumps in her free skate programme, and the judges left room for Sumners to win the event, but Sumners scaled back two of her jumps, and Witt won the long programme by one tenth of a point on one judge's scorecard.

In 1987, Witt recaptured the World Championship title, which she had lost the previous year to Debi Thomas. Witt only finished fifth in compulsory figures, which meant that Thomas could finish second in both the short and long programmes and still retain the world title. However, a costly error by Thomas in the short programme put the two skaters on a level playing field heading into the free skate. Witt skated the strongest long programme of her career, landing five triple jumps, including a triple loop jump. Although Thomas also skated a strong long programme, Witt was ranked first by the majority of the nine judges and thus reclaimed the world title.

In 1988, Witt won her sixth consecutive European Championship, equalling the achievement of Sonja Henie as the most successful Ladies Skater at the European Championships. While Witt's and Henie's number of European titles have been surpassed since by Irina Slutskaya, she retains the record of most consecutive European titles, sharing it with Henie.

Both Witt and Thomas were favoured contenders in the 1988 Olympic Games. Their rivalry was known as the "Battle of the Carmens", as each woman had independently elected to skate her long programme to music from Bizet's opera Carmen. They held the top two spots after the compulsory figures and the short programme. Witt skated her long programme well, but not spectacularly, landing four triple jumps and downgrading her planned triple loop jump to a double loop. This left room for Thomas to win the long programme, but Thomas skated poorly, missing three of her planned five triple jumps. Canadian skater Elizabeth Manley won the long programme, but Witt retained her Olympic title based on her overall scores (she had finished ahead of Manley in both the compulsory figures and the short programme). Witt became only the second woman in figure skating history (after Sonja Henie) to defend her Olympic title. To honour her and her win in Calgary North Korea issued miniature sheets with three large pictures of Witt on the ice.[1]

After competing

In 1988, Witt started a professional career, which was unusual for East German athletes. She spent three years on tour in the United States with Brian Boitano, also a gold medalist in figure skating. Their show "Witt and Boitano Skating" was so successful that for the first time in ten years, New York's Madison Square Garden was sold out for an ice show. Later she continued at Holiday on Ice in the United States and in Western Europe.

Following the dissolution of East Germany, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi) files were found to show that the secret police had worked hard to keep Witt from defecting by giving her cars, accommodations, and permitted travel.[2]

She also became an actress in the film Carmen on Ice (1989), which expanded upon her gold medal freestyle routine at Calgary. In 1990, she received an Emmy Award for her role in this film.

In 1994, she made a comeback to the competitive skating scene. She was again coached by Jutta Müller and qualified for the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, where she finished 7th. This was Witt's first international competition for the reunified country of Germany, following 11 years competing for East Germany. Much-noted was her free programme to the music “Sag mir wo die Blumen sind” (an arrangement of the Pete Seeger folksong "Where Have All the Flowers Gone"), considered remarkable for its artistic impression, including a peace message for the people of Sarajevo (the site of her first Olympic victory). She received the Golden Camera for her Olympic comeback. In the same year she published her autobiography Meine Jahre zwischen Pflicht und Kür (My Years between Compulsories and Freestyle).

In 1995, she was inducted into the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame.

In 1996, she had a cameo role in the movie Jerry Maguire. She also starred in a German-language movie called Princess on Ice. Witt provided the vocals for the theme song, "Skate With Me".

Witt appeared as herself in two episodes of the TV comedy series Arli$$ that aired in 1997 and 1998.

In December 1998, Witt posed nude for Playboy magazine. The issue in which these photos were published was the second ever sold-out issue of the magazine.[3] (The first sold-out issue was the inaugural one including photos of Marilyn Monroe.) Also in 1998, Witt appeared in the movie Ronin with a small supporting role and several lines of script. Around this time, she also played a villain in an episode of the tongue-in-cheek television series, V.I.P.

Witt has been known for her beauty and sex appeal as well as for her athleticism. Time magazine called her "the most beautiful face of socialism."

Witt's taste in figure skating costumes sometimes raised eyebrows. At the 1983 European championships she skated her Mozart short programme in knee breeches instead of a skirt. Her blue skirtless feather-trimmed 1988 costume for a showgirl-themed short programme was considered too theatrical and sexy, and led to a change in the ISU regulations which required female skaters to wear more modest clothing, including skirts. In 1994, skating a Robin Hood-themed programme, she again pushed the boundaries of costume regulations by wearing a short tunic over leggings.

In November 2005, she published a novel, Only with Passion, in which she offers advice to a fictional young skater based on her many years of skating. Since October 2006, she has her own TV show at the German station ProSieben Stars auf Eis (Stars on Ice).

On 7 July 2007, Witt was a compere at the German segment of Live Earth.

Witt was invited to Istanbul as an honoured guest for the skating competition TV show called Buzda Dans (Dance on Ice). The competition took place on February 25, 2007.

Her farewell tour took place in February and March 2008.

Witt was the bid head for Munich's unsuccessful bid to host the Winter Olympics in 2018.[4]

On 3 December 2011, Witt was confirmed as a judge on hit UK TV show, Dancing On Ice, in which she will make her first appearance in January 2012. [5]

Results

Event 1978–79 1979–80 1980–81 1981–82 1982–83 1983–84 1984–85 1985–86 1986–87 1987–88 1993–94
Winter Olympic Games 1st 1st 7th
World Championships 10th 5th 2nd 4th 1st 1st 2nd 1st 1st
European Championships 14th 13th 5th 2nd 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 8th
East German Championships 3rd 2nd 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st 1st
German Championships 2nd
Skate Canada International 1st
NHK Trophy 2nd 1st 1st 1st

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. ^ (in Russian)USSR Philately (Moscow) (7): 1. July 1989. ISSN 0130—5689.  — photo of this postage block
  2. ^ Tony Paterson, The Daily Telegraph, 2002-05-05. Stasi files reveal Katarina Witt was willing accomplice. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ http://www.itv.com/presscentre/pressreleases/programmepressreleases/dancingonicejudges/default.html

External links
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Marita Koch		 East German Sportswoman of the Year
1984		 Succeeded by
Marita Koch