Imke Duplitzer
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| Born |
28 July 1975 Karlsruhe, Germany | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Sport | Fencing | |||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
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Imke Duplitzer (born 28 July 1975 in Karlsruhe) is a German épée fencer. At the 2004 Summer Olympics she won the silver medal in the épée competition with her teammates, Britta Heidemann and Claudia Bokel.[1][2] During the 2006 World Fencing Championships she won the bronze medal after beating Romania in the épée team event together with her team mates Claudia Bokel, Britta Heidemann and Marijana Markovic. Duplitzer is openly lesbian.[3]
Political Engagement
Imke Duplitzer, outspoken and passionately devoted to human-rights issues, boycotted the 2008 Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies as a protest to Chinese communism and its actions in Tibet and Darfur. She said she'd probably spend the time reading a book and having a beer.
"I'm in a different position from other young athletes," Imke told the press in Beijing at the time. "This is my fourth Games. I understand athletes want to march in the opening ceremony because it's a life dream. That's okay with me."
Duplitzer was also one of 40 athletes who signed an open letter to Chinese president Hu protesting human-rights violations in Tibet and Darfur. This open letter was part of a huge international activist flurry designed to pressure the People's Republic of China into the respect for human rights officially required from member nations of the Olympics movement. However, China ignored the protests, and the Games rolled forward.
In 2012 London Olympics, she was back for another lunge at gold and openly criticised the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB). Around her, the current human-rights flurry has been aimed at certain countries' treatment of LGBT people and women. Today, most Olympic athletes are not prepared to sacrifice their sport careers, and the living that they can make from a medal win, for the sake of political ideals. But Imke Duplitzer hasn't gone silent.
She went on to skewer the IOC's new policy of squelching athletes promoting products during the Games, while allowing the Olympic organizers themselves to enrich themselves with sponsorships. "It's extremely unfair on the athletes," she said. Duplitzer stated that if "The IOC presents itself as something noble, helpful and good—then frankly they should behave like it." She expressed her outrage as the Games have become less about the athletes and more about the sponsors. However, Duplitzer's remarks were mostly kept muffled in the German press. Duplitzer spoke her mind on doping as well. "If you have a bit of money for medication, a good doctor, and a lax federation, you'll never be caught." There was no official reaction from German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) to the interview.
Imke Duplitzer is widly known for her work on Hollywood blockbuster The Three Musketeers (2011). In preparation for filming, Logan Lerman and the leading actor, Orlando Bloom, were “tutored” in the fine art of fencing by the German European Championship gold-medalist. Fall 2012 she published her first book “Helden Haft” together with the famous EU politician Dani Cohn-Bendit. The book covers interviews with Reinhold Messner, Heidi Schüller, Sylvia Schenk, Ines Geipel and Toni Innauer about sport policy, corruption, doping and media coverage.
References
- ↑ "Olympics Statistics: Imke Duplitzer". databaseolympics.com. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
- ↑ "Imke Duplitzer Olympic Results". sports-reference.com. Retrieved 2012-03-03.
- ↑ Buzinski, Jim (11 August 2004), "These aren't the Gay Games", Gay.com, archived from the original on 5 September 2005, retrieved 4 April 2008
External links
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