 Cierpinski in 1976 | ||
| Medal record | ||
|---|---|---|
| Men's athletics | ||
Representing  East Germany | ||
| Olympic Games | ||
 | 1976 Montreal | Marathon |
| 1980 Moscow | Marathon |
| World Championships | ||
 | 1983 Helsinki | Marathon |
Waldemar Cierpinski (born 3 August 1950) is a former East German athlete and two-time Olympic champion in the marathon.
Cierpinski was born in Neugattersleben, East Germany to Polish parents who had moved to Germany in 1945. He was originally a successful steeplechase runner but decided to switch to the marathon in 1974.
He was virtually unknown when he entered the 1976 Olympic marathon. He ran with the lead pack until American Frank Shorter broke free after the 25 km mark. Cierpinski chased Shorter down then took the lead, winning the race by 51 seconds. His victory was so unexpected that in the Olympic football final that evening, goalkeeper Jürgen Croy, invoked Cierpinski, a "living example of mediocrity", to inspire East Germany to a 3–1 victory over fancied Poland. [1]
Cierpinski finished in fourth place at the 1978 European Championships. In the 1980 Summer Olympics, he ran wisely and did not match the suicidal pace the leaders had set. He caught up to the leaders at the 36 km mark and soon led by a healthy margin. Although Gerard Nijboer from the Netherlands narrowed the gap in the last kilometre, Cierpinski sprinted the last 200 m to win his second consecutive Olympic gold medal and duplicate the feat of legendary Ethiopian Abebe Bikila of winning two straight Olympic marathons.
Cierpinski finished third in the marathon in the 1983 World Championships in Athletics. He was denied a chance of an unprecedented third Olympic marathon win by the Eastern Bloc boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which was tit for tat for the United States-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. He left competition the same year and started a coaching career.
In Track & Field News World Rankings, Cierpinski was ranked first in the marathon in 1976 and 1980 and eighth in 1978 and 1983.
Cierpinski is a member of the German Olympic Committee. Since 2007, Cierpinski has been an honorary member of the SG WiP Goettingen 06. [2] He lives in Halle an der Saale.
It is now well known that East Germany operated a state-sponsored system of providing performance-enhancing drugs to as many as 10,000 athletes from about 1968 to 1988. Cierpinski was implicated by East German track and field research files uncovered by Werner Franke at the Stasi headquarters in Leipzig in the late 1990s. [3]
As a result, 1976 silver medallist Frank Shorter has advocated the belief that Cierpinski cheated and has supported official review of past performances, i.e. considering stripping medals from athletes who are found later on to have cheated, as a deterrent to drug-cheats. [4] Fourth-place finisher Don Kardong has also written that he believed Cierpinski was involved in the East German doping program. [5] Shorter's allegations are very similar to those of Shirley Babashoff, who accused the East German women of drug cheating during the swimming events in the same Olympic Games, which was later substantiated by investigators in the PBS documentary "Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold".
Degaga "Mamo" Wolde was an Ethiopian long distance runner who competed in track, cross-country, and road running events. He was the winner of the marathon at the 1968 Summer Olympics.
The 1976 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXI Olympiad and officially branded as Montreal 1976, were an international multi-sport event held from July 17 to August 1, 1976, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal was awarded the rights to the 1976 Games at the 69th IOC Session in Amsterdam on May 12, 1970, over the bids of Moscow and Los Angeles. It was the first and, so far, only Summer Olympic Games to be held in Canada. Toronto hosted the 1976 Summer Paralympics the same year as the Montreal Olympics, which still remains the only Summer Paralympics to be held in Canada. Calgary and Vancouver later hosted the Winter Olympic Games in 1988 and 2010, respectively.
The 1984 Summer Olympics were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the second time that Los Angeles had hosted the Games, the first being in 1932. California was the home state of the incumbent U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who officially opened the Games. These were the first Summer Olympic Games under the IOC presidency of Juan Antonio Samaranch.
The 1980 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXII Olympiad and officially branded as Moscow 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from 19 July to 3 August 1980 in Moscow, Soviet Union, in present-day Russia. The games were the first to be staged in an Eastern Bloc country, as well as the first Olympic Games and only Summer Olympics to be held in a Slavic language-speaking country. They were also the only Summer Olympic Games to be held in a self-proclaimed communist country until the 2008 Summer Olympics held in China. These were the final Olympic Games under the IOC Presidency of Michael Morris, 3rd Baron Killanin before he was succeeded by Juan Antonio Samaranch, a Spaniard, shortly afterwards.
Edwin Corley Moses is an American former hurdler who won gold medals in the 400 m hurdles at the 1976 and 1984 Olympics. Between 1977 and 1987, Moses won 107 consecutive finals and set the world record in the event four times. In addition to his running, Moses was also an innovative reformer in the areas of Olympic eligibility and drug testing. In 2000, he was elected the first Chairman of the Laureus World Sports Academy, an international service organization of world-class athletes.
Frank Charles Shorter is an American former long-distance runner who won the gold medal in the marathon at the 1972 Summer Olympics and the silver medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics. His Olympic success, along with the achievements of other American runners, is credited with igniting the running boom in the United States during the 1970s.
In competitive sports, doping is the use of banned athletic performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) by athletic competitors, as a way of cheating. As stated in the World Anti-Doping Code by WADA, doping is defined as the occurrence of one or more of the anti-doping rule violations set forth in Article 2.1 through Article 2.11 of the Code. The term doping is widely used by organizations that regulate sporting competitions. The use of drugs to enhance performance is considered unethical, and is prohibited by most international sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee. Furthermore, athletes taking explicit measures to evade detection exacerbate the ethical violation with overt deception and cheating.
The United States of America has sent athletes to every celebration of the modern Olympic Games with the exception of the 1980 Summer Olympics, during which it led a boycott in protest of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. The United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is the National Olympic Committee for the United States.
Shirley Frances Babashoff is an American former competition swimmer, Olympic champion, and former world record-holder in multiple events. Babashoff set six world records and earned a total of nine Olympic medals in her career. She won a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle relay in both the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, and she won the 1975 world championship in both the 200-meter and 400-meter freestyle. During her career, she set 37 national records and for some time held all national freestyle records from the 100-meter to 800-meter event.
Petra Schneider is a German retired medley and freestyle swimmer. She actively competed in the 1970s and 1980s.
The German Democratic Republic (GDR), often called East Germany, founded a separate National Olympic Committee for socialist East Germany on 22 April 1951 in the Rotes Rathaus of East Berlin. This was the last of three German Olympic committees of the time. It was not recognized by the IOC for over a decade.
Nepal sent a delegation to compete at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from 17 July to 1 August 1976. This was the nation's third time competing at a Summer Olympic Games. Nepal's delegation consisted of a single Marathon runner, Baikuntha Manandhar. He finished the race in 50th place.
The men's marathon at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, was held on Sunday August 12, 1984. The race started at 5:00 pm local time. There were 107 competitors from 59 countries. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. A total number of 78 athletes completed the race.
The men's marathon at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada, was held on Saturday July 31, 1976. The race started at 17:30 local time. There were 67 competitors from 36 countries. Seven of them did not finish. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany, the first Olympic marathon medal by any German runner. Frank Shorter of the United States and Karel Lismont of Belgium became the third and fourth men to win a second medal in the event, each one place behind their 1972 results. Ethiopia's four-Games marathon medal streak ended, as the nation boycotted the Games.
The men's marathon at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, was held on Sunday August 9, 1992. The race started at 18:30h local time. One hundred and ten athletes from 72 nations started; 87 athletes completed the race, with Pyambuugiin Tuul from Mongolia finishing in last position in 4:00:44. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at 3 since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Hwang Young-Cho of South Korea, the nation's first Olympic men's marathon medal. Koichi Morishita's silver was Japan's first medal in the event since 1968. Stephan Freigang of Germany took bronze, the first medal for Germany in the event though East Germany had won two golds during partition.
Donald Franklin Kardong is a noted runner and author from the United States. He finished fourth in the 1976 Olympic marathon in Montreal.
The boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles followed four years after the American-led boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The boycott involved 14 Eastern Bloc satellite states and allies, led by the Soviet Union, which initiated the boycott on May 8, 1984. Boycotting countries organized another major event, called the Friendship Games, in July and August 1984. Although the boycott led by the Soviet Union affected Olympic events that were normally dominated by the absent countries, 140 nations still took part in the games, which was a record at the time.
The men's marathon at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, USSR had an entry list of 76 competitors, with 74 athletes from 40 nations starting and 53 runners finishing the race held on Friday 1 August 1980. The maximum number of athletes per nation had been set at three since the 1930 Olympic Congress. The event was won by Waldemar Cierpinski of East Germany, the second man to successfully defend Olympic gold in the marathon. Both the Netherlands and the Soviet Union won their first men's Olympic marathon medals. The winning margin was 17 seconds.
The 4 × 100 metres relay at the Summer Olympics is the shortest track relay event held at the multi-sport event. The men's relay has been present on the Olympic athletics programme since 1912 and the women's event has been continuously held since the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam. It is the most prestigious 4×100 m relay race at elite level.
Media related to Waldemar Cierpinski at Wikimedia Commons
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