German Olympic Athletes Worth Their Weight in Gold
February 26, 2006
Germany has once again powered to the top of the Winter Olympics medals table, with a total of 29 medals in Turin, 11 of which are gold. Having won 36 medals in Salt Lake City and 29 in Nagano, the Turin results are par for the course.
Germans are not known for excessive displays of national pride. But even while the German media praised the achievements of individual athletes such as Michael Greis who, with three gold medals was the most successful athlete at Turin, there was still plenty of analysis about how it was really technological advances that helped German competitors, for example, or how the country was still weak in core sports such as alpine skiing, figure skating, and hockey.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung attributed Germany's success in the medals table to "second-tier" sports, such as biathlon, luge and bobsleigh.
"In the core Winter Olympic sport alpine skiing, Germans were far behind the best," the Munich-based paper wrote. "In figure skating, we fell further behind than expected. The hockey team had nothing to offer. Germany has to be careful it doesn't miss out on the new era."
Germany's winning athletes in Turin might be forgiven for feeling somewhat slighted by such a "glass half empty" mindset.
Speaking out on their behalf was German figure skating gold medal winner, Katarina Witt. In the Welt am Sonntag, the former ice queen countered the fault-finding tendency of her fellow citizens, writing: "We should be proud of ourselves for being the best winter sports nation."
After all, in biathlete Greis, Germany had one of the stars of the Turin Games, with the 29-year-old becoming the first German to win three golds at the same Olympics.
Greis had never picked up an Olympic medal before but stole the show with gold in the 20km individual, 15km mass-start and 4x7.5km relay.
Old guard also on form
He may have been the new star on the scene, but Germany's Winter Olympics old guard also delivered the goods in the twilight of their careers.
Biathlete Sven Fischer, 34, won 10km individual gold to collect his seventh Olympic medal in a career spanning 12 years. Fischer already had two golds to his name from the relay events at the 1994 and 1998 Games.
The 34-year-old Claudia Pechstein picked up silver in the 5,000m to make her the speedskater with the most medals in Olympic history with five gold, two silver and two bronze.
"I have nine medals to my name and am proud to be Germany's most
successful Winter Olympian," Pechstein said, proving that she has no qualms about recognizing her achievements.
The golden girl from 2002, Kati Wilhelm, double Olympic champion at biathlon, also won gold in the 10km pursuit and two silvers in the 12.5km mass-start and 4x6km relay.
Indeed biathlon, which combines rifle-shooting with cross-country skiing, provided Germany with 11 out of its 29 medals.
As well as biathlon, the luge and bobsleigh were other disciplines dominated by German athletes with Sylke Otto, Silke Kraushaar, and Tatjana Huefner ensuring a clean sweep in the women's luge.
In the bobsleigh, Andre Lange also won gold in the men's two and four-man bobsleigh races.
Winning spirit
Other German team members like luge legend Georg Hackl, 39, might have failed to win a medal, but still showed that the Olympic spirit was alive and well. Hackl had hoped to add to his three career golds in Turin, but "the speeding sausage" failed to sizzle, coming in seventh.
"I did not win a medal but I have shown that I can still compete with these younger guys," said Hackl.
Figure-skating pair Aliona Savchenko and Robin Szolkowy also went home empty-handed as the controversy surrounding their coach Ingo Steuer took its toll.
The German Olympic Committee (NOK) had banned Steuer from the Games due to apparent ties with the Stasi, the secret police in the former east Germany, only to see a court overturn the decision and Steuer board the plane for Turin.
There was also controversy surrounding cross-country ace Evi Sachenbacher, who was temporarily suspended for excessive haemoglobin levels, but Germany shrugged off the problems to reach their goal.
"We reached our goal to finish top of the medals table and can be very happy with the Turin Games," concluded NOK president Klaus Steinbach in the kind of matter-of-fact fashion that could only exist in a country which has come to expect this level of success.