Gabriele Fähnrich

Gabriele Fähnrich
Country represented  East Germany
Born (1969-04-08) 8 April 1969
Hometown Hoyerswerda
Discipline Women's artistic gymnastics

Gabriele Fähnrich (born 8 April 1968 in Hoyerswerda, Saxony) is a German former gymnast. She competed for the Berlin club Sportvereinigung Dynamo (Sports Club Dynamo) and for the German Democratic Republic (commonly referred to as East Germany). She was highly successful in international competitions and is the 1985 World champion on the uneven bars. She also finished fourth in the all-around event at the 1985 World Championships, and won a bronze medal in the team event at the 1988 Olympic Games.

Gabriele Fähnrichs parents and sister Carola were also gymnasts, but it was Gabriele who was the most talented.

Gabriele Fähnrich was nine ,when she went to the national training center in East-Berlin and stayed there for 11 years.

Problems with her coaches

In 2005 and 2006 , Gabriele Fähnrich gave several interviews to German newspapers in which she told about her unhappy times in gymnastics and her many problems with the East German coaches.

The problems started in 1983, when Fähnrich was competing in Japan at the Chunichi Cup meet.During the competition, she wanted to make some photos, but had problems with her camera.A West-German gymnast, Brigitta Lehmann, who was also competing at this meet, saw that she had problems and went to her and offered her help, which Fähnrich accepted.This incident only happened a few minutes, but caused big problems for Fähnrich, because it was strictly forbidden for East Germans athletes to talk to West-Germans.After this meet, she was questioned about this incident by her coaches and later the Stasi, their reaction towards her was rude and they called her a liar.

In 1984 , Fähnrich was selected for the 1984 Olympic team, but because of the boycott , she and her teammates stayed home.

In 1985 at the World Championships in Canada , she was very successful , she won a bronze medal with her team, was 4th in the All-around and became world-champion on uneven-bars!

Gabriele Fähnrich was fantastic on bars, her beam-routine was good , but not great (she won the national beam-title in 1985, her only national title), but on floor and vault ,she was weak , and that was something the GDR-coaches wanted to change after her success in Canada.

They made her train extra hard to learn new skills on floor and they wanted her to do a more difficult vault, however this new training method resulted in a knee-injury that was so bad that she couldn't compete in 1986 and it was necessary to have surgery on both knees.

Although not yet recovered from the surgery, the coaches wanted her to compete at the 1987 Worlds in Rotterdam. Because she was still not recovered, this meet was a disaster for Fähnrich, who was the worst gymnast of her team, although she scored a perfect 10.00 on bars during the team finals. Her coaches reacted furious and refused to talk to her during their stay in Rotterdam.

Doping and the 1988 Olympics

In 1988 , almost very female elite gymnast in East Germany was injured, most of them badly. Fähnrich, together with club-mates Dagmar Kersten and Ulrike Klotz became part of the doping-program of the GDR-Sport system. To make their body's stronger, they were given doping, which had a disastrous effect on Fähnrichs body : she started to gain a lot of weight and had to stop with the program. The coaches gave up on her and three weeks before the Olympics , they wanted to send her home.

At the national training center she was given a last chance: She had to lose several pounds in three days, which she did by only eating one apple a day and using a lot of laxatives, which gave her gruesome stomach-pains.

At the Olympics in Seoul, she did well, she was the third best gymnast of her team, but did not compete at the All Around, because teammate Ulrike Klotz had the same score as her and the coaches choose Klotz to compete instead of Fähnrich. The East German team won the bronze medal at the Olympic team competition.

After the Olympics

After the Olympics, Fähnrich not only retired from gymnastics, but she also didn't want to have anything to do with gymnastics anymore. She married and became a beautician. In 1990 she had a daughter, Lisa. Lisa did gymnastics for a while and when the coaches told Fähnrich that her daughter was a talent, she took her daughter away from gymnastics and she took her to a karate-club instead.


She currently sits on the board of the Citizens Center Hohenschönhausen.[1]

References

  1. ↑ Herlitze-Design. "Bürgerschloss Hohenschönhausen". www.schlosshsh.de.
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