Katarina Witt Tickets

Katarina Witt
Katarina Witt is a German figure skater. She was born in Staaken, just outside of West Berlin, which is today part of Berlin in December 3, 1965. In Germany she was commonly affectionately called ?Kati?.

She went to school in Karl-Marx-Stadt. There she attended a special school for sports-talented children. She represented the club SC Karl-Marx-Stadt for the GDR. Jutta M?ller began coaching her in 1977.

Katarina won two Olympic gold medals for East Germany, first in Sarajevo Olympics and the second at the Calgary Olympics. She won the World Championships and six consecutive European Championships.

Her competitive record makes her one of the most successful figure skaters of all time. By the readers of the East German newspaper junge Welt, Katarina Witt was voted ?GDR female athlete of the year?. She narrowly won the Olympic title of the United States.

Witt and Sumners held the top two spots heading into the Olympic free skate. Witt landed three triple jumps in her free skate program and the judges left room for Sumners to win the event.

But Witt won the long program by one tenth of a point. Witt recaptured the World Championship title, which she had lost the previous year to Debi Thomas. Many consider her performance at this event to be the finest of her career.

Witt only finished fifth in compulsory figures, which meant that Thomas could finish second in both the short and long programs and still retain the world title. Witt was ranked first by the majority of the 9 judges and thus reclaimed the world title.

Both Witt and Thomas were the favored contenders for the Olympic title. Their rivalry was known as the ?Battle of the Carmens?.

Witt skate her long program well and downgrading her planned triple loop jump to a double loop. This left room for Thomas to win the long program, but Thomas skated poorly and Canadian skater Elizabeth Manley actually won the long program.

Katarina Witt became only the second woman in figure skating history to defend her Olympic title. After then Witt started a professional career, which was very unusual for East German athletes.

At first 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. She also became an actress in the film Carmen on Ice and received an Emmy Award for her role in this film.

Witt came back to the competitive skating scene. She was again coached by Jutta M?ller and qualified for the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.

Her appearance in the Olympics was more about celebrating the joy of freedom in East Germany than in hopes of winning a medal. Much-noted was her free program to the music considered remarkable for its artistic impression. It had included a peace message for the people of Sarajevo.

In the same year she published her autobiography. After that she posed nude for Playboy Magazine. The issue in which these photos were published was the second sold-out issue of this magazine.

Witt has been known for her beauty as well as for her athleticism. Time magazine called her ?the most beautiful face of socialism?. She also published a novel, Only with Passion, in which she offers advice to a fictional young skater based on her many years of skating.